Facing Fear
by QueenY C
Summary: The war is on the horizon and Lily has had her side chosen for her, but with so much tragedy surrounding her young life and all her ambitions, can she pull through stronger than before or will this war will break apart everything she’s ever known?
1. Chapter 1

**Story:** **Facing Fear**

**Summary: **The war is on the horizon and Lily has had her side chosen for her, but with so much tragedy surrounding her young life and all her ambitions, can she pull through stronger than before or will this war will break apart everything she's ever known?

**Disclaimer: **None of it's mine.

_**A/N: **__This story has been a work in progress for years, changing constantly to remain canon and also every time I read through it. I've done my best to stay true to the story, only taking liberties when I felt it absolutely necessary to the plot or when I could not in all of my research find a concrete answer to my questions. If you notice anything out of canon let me know, I'll do what I can to fix it. Thanks for reading and PLEASE review and let me know what you think!_

**Chapter One: Loss of a Sister**

_Of two sisters one is always the watcher, one the dancer. _

_~Louise Glück__._

Everything about the house at Number 3 Penbrook Lane in Surrey, looked exactly the same as Number 4 Penbrook, or in fact, Number 6 Cherry Street, which sat on the street running perpendicular to it, or for that matter any other home in the small suburban area. If there was anything at all that stood out about the residence it was only the pretty flower garden out front that someone had obviously devoted a good deal of time to and a small sign hanging on the front door which stated, 'Friends are welcome, all others get lost.'

The residents of Number 3 were not very extraordinary people either, though some of the nosier neighbors would call them an 'odd sort.' Mr. and Mrs. Charles Evans had lived in the home for something like twenty years with their two teenage daughters, Petunia and Lily. Some years back Mrs. Evans mother, Rose had moved in as well.

The neighbors liked the Evanses pretty well as whole. They were a quiet lot and unassuming. They went to bed at a reasonable hour and brought a good deal of attention to the neighborhood with their gardening. Petunia Evans had just started University last year and Lily was at a boarding school for the gifted in Scotland.

If they sometimes seemed a little shifty about the details of their life, the neighbors forgave them as socially aloof. If the Evanses often seemed to be mildly condescending at social gatherings where it seemed they were determined to laugh at tradition and propriety, they were forgiven as snobs who were, none the less, good hearted.

On September first of 1977 however, no matter how unassuming the house appeared from the outside, inside there was chaos reigning in the Evans household like there had never been before.

Lily Evans rested her head into her hands and allowed her long, slender fingers to make small soothing circles at her temples. Her locks, determined to curl at the bottom no matter how many straightening charms she used, hung past her shoulders framing her in a curtain of fiery hair. She was seventeen and she was exhausted. She'd spent the majority of the previous night sitting up with her older sister, something they hadn't done since before Lily had turned eleven.

Petunia, only a few years older than Lily, had apparently been keeping a big secret from their parents while Lily had been away for the school year and she'd been in search of advice.

If there was one thing that Lily understood, it was secrets. After all, she had a pretty big one herself. She supposed that was the reason why Petunia had sought her out for help even though the two hadn't spoken civilly to each other in about six years.

The sisters hadn't been on good terms with one another since the day that Lily was accepted to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, a magical boarding school in Scotland, and Petunia had been left behind. Perhaps that was why Lily had agreed to stay up all night talking against her better judgment. She'd always missed her sister.

"Tea?" The heavenly smell of citrus wafted to her senses and made Lily's eyes at least slightly more willing to stay open. She looked up and gratefully accepted the warm cup of Lady Grey. "Light on the cream and no sugar," her grandmother nodded to Lily's yet unasked question. The younger girl smiled as her grandmother, holding a cup of what smelled like breakfast blend in her own hand, joined Lily on the dayroom sofa.

In the kitchen Lily could still hear the raised voices of her parents' and older sister and though she couldn't make out the words, she knew the subject matter well. She hoped that it was going at least a bit like she and Petunia had rehearsed it so that her sister would be prepared. Still, even with the right words Lily knew that the conversation between her parents and her sister wasn't going to be easy.

_Why do I care? Since when has she cared about me?_

"Do you think everything is…okay?" Lily asked her grandmother, chewing nervously on her lip unconsciously. The truth was she did care. She cared a lot. No matter what, Petunia was still her sister.

The older woman chuckled softly and patted her granddaughter's knee. "Not to worry, Lily. What happens will happen and we will pick up the pieces from there."

Lily gazed into the wizened eyes of her mother's mother. Lily was the only person in her family to have inherited her grandmother's thick red hair. "Irish roots" they called it "a temper as fiery as the hair." Lily could barely remember a time when her grandmother's hair had been red like her own. Now it was barely visible through the streaks of dignified grey. The young face she'd seen in pictures also had faded to wrinkles and weariness. Lily wondered what it took to make a person unrecognizable by time.

She knew that her grandmother had seen a lot of tragedy. She'd lost children to the second war and her husband of forty-five years to a long illness. She'd moved in with Lily's family two years before when she could no longer make the payments on her house without her husband's support. Lily couldn't imagine not having Granny Rose in the house now. She nodded at the woman's words, taking strength in the knowledge that her roots were strong and she could be too.

_Be strong._

_Don't be so afraid all the time._

If there was one thing Lily hated, it was her fears. She resented them. It seemed though, that the more of them she faced, the more things she found to be afraid of. She was afraid of losing her sister, Petunia. She was afraid of the whispers of war in the Wizarding World. She was terrified of becoming who she was—a witch—and losing her family in the process.

"Granny Rose," Lily sighed, "Do you think that Petunia and I could be friends again?" The question had been at the tip of her thoughts all through the night before and into the following morning. She and Petunia had almost been sisters again in the early hours of night as they decided if and how Petunia would break the secret to her parents.

"Sister," Granny Rose grinned, "Is a sacred word. There is no bond harder to break. You can't ever truly hate a sister; only love them from a distance." The old woman chuckled as Lily visibly rolled the confusing thoughts around her head. "That is to say," Granny Rose continued, "I think all manner of forgiveness can occur between sisters."

Lily nodded again. A loud thump came from behind the kitchen door and the voices rose to the point that Lily could make out words.

_Here it comes._

"I will _not_ have this!" Her father's deep baritone voice shouted, penetrating the swinging kitchen door. His voice boomed so that it seemed to cause the hinges to creak. Lily braced herself for the coming eruption. Her family, her father in particular, was not well-known for keeping calm in heightened situations.

"It's not your choice!" Petunia responded in kind. "I'm old enough to make this decision and I came to you hoping you'd understand!"

"Petunia you're not even twenty yet—" Her mother's voice sounded frail when it was raised so loudly.

"He makes me _happy_!" Petunia shouted, "Shouldn't that be enough for you?"

Lily felt her breath catch in her throat. She sent a silent prayer to God that Petunia did not do what Lily knew she would. Lily couldn't see what occurred on the other side of the door, but she knew that her parents were hesitating too long for Petunia's liking.

_Say something! Say you love her!_

"Why can't you just be happy for me? You love _Lily_ no matter what, but not me? I hate this place, and I hate _all_ of you!" Lily shut her eyes. This was not in the plan. Angry footsteps echoed across the kitchen floor and moments later Petunia burst through the swinging kitchen door with tears streaming down her face.

Her thin blonde hair was frazzled around her angular features and her pale skin was red with rage and hurt. For just a moment Petunia's chocolate eyes met Lily's emerald ones. 'Goodbye,' they said. Lily's heart wrenched in her chest and she put her hand there to make sure it was still beating.

It had happened. The final stroke which Lily had feared for years and was honestly surprised had not come from her but their parents. It was the last thing that would ever make Petunia Evans feel like she was not wanted or important in this family. She would walk away from them because she had always felt that they couldn't see her anyway.

"Tuney," Lily said softly, the old nickname surfacing of its own accord. She stood up from her spot on the sofa meaning to approach Petunia and hug her or slap her, both seemed good at the time.

_I see you._ _I always have._

Lily wanted to say the words but knew now that they would come too late. The older girl shook her head. "You were the perfect child, Lily," she told her little sister bitterly, swiping at the tears on her cheeks, "It's wasn't you fault anymore than it was mine. But they don't need me when they have you."

Then, tall, blonde, insecure Petunia Evans crossed the space between the kitchen entrance and the staircase—where she'd earlier left a duffel just in case—and slung the bag over one shoulder. She turned towards the front door, careful not to make eye contact again as she walked by her little sister and grandmother. As she pulled the front door open for the last time, the sparkle of a diamond shone on her left ring finger. Then she walked out without another word.

Lily felt like she couldn't breathe. Her sister was gone, truly gone. She wouldn't be coming back, and she wouldn't be inviting any of them to her wedding in just a year. A piece of what Lily had always held onto dissolved. It was moments like this when she realized what she'd given up for her life as a witch. She sat back on the sofa with a weight heavy in her heart.

_I'll have no family when this is all over._

After a few, silent, tense moments the kitchen door swung open again. Her father stood before her, stony-faced and red. His salt-and-pepper hair looked disheveled and his fists clenched and unclenched to the same rhythm of his working jaw. Lily didn't think she'd ever seen her father look so angry. He was almost a stranger to her.

"You knew about this, Lily." He said finally. There was no question in his voice so Lily felt no need to answer. Her father took her silence as the submission that it was and turned from her instantly, storming out of the back door. In the wake of his footsteps she could hear her mother sobbing quietly in the kitchen.

Lily wanted to cry too, but instead she looked to her watch. Petunia had given it to her for her eleventh birthday, moments before a letter changed everything between them. Lily had never stopped wearing it. It was all she had left of that relationship now.

It took a moment for her to realize what time she was reading. It was already almost ten. Lily had been planning on arriving early to the station since she'd been appointed Head Girl this year and it was her duty to oversee the prefect meeting for chosen, exemplary students who worked as a sort of student organization of discipline. In order to arrive when she wanted, she needed to be leaving for King's Cross Station very soon.

Even though she'd come of age in January, she'd only sat for the apparition test a month ago and she was nervous about it. Knowing how chaotic her emotions were and how easily she could mess up in such a state made the Lady Grey tea in stomach start bubbling.

She looked at her grandmother who seemed to be reading her thoughts. Granny Rose nodded towards the front door with a sad sort of smile of understanding.

"I'm sure they wouldn't forgive themselves if you missed school. They just need a bit of time to calm down."

Lily hugged her grandmother and after kissing the older woman on the cheek she walked to the front door where her trunk was already packed and waiting. She took the handle and gripped it tightly, trying desperately to reign in her emotions and then, biting her lip in concentration as much as anxiety, she spun on the spot. She felt the familiar sensation that accompanied apparition which felt to Lily a lot like being sucked through a narrow straw, and then the instant relief of her feet hitting a new, unfamiliar surface. She was standing in a stall of woman's lavatory in King's Cross Station.


	2. Chapter 2

**Story: Facing Fear**

**Summary: **The war is on the horizon and Lily has had her side chosen for her, but with so much tragedy surrounding her young life and all her ambitions, can she pull through stronger than before or will this war will break apart everything she's ever known?

**Disclaimer: **Not mine.

**Chapter Two:** **Nothing Left to Say**

_As we grow up, we learn that even the one person that wasn't _

_supposed to ever let us down probably will._

_~Anonymous_

Lily tried to paste a convincing smile onto her face as she stepped out of the woman's lavatory at King's Cross Station. She wondered if her parent's had realized she'd left yet.

_I wonder if they miss me._

She chewed on her lip thoughtfully and tried very hard _not_ to wonder where her sister was. She tried very hard _not_ to imagine Petunia's slight frame shaking with sobs in the arms of the large, beefy man who had stolen her heart. Lily tried, but she couldn't seem to avoid the images.

She stumbled gracelessly through the crowd at King's Cross, making little headway to the barrier between platforms nine and ten. The tears that beaded in her eyes made her feel both angry at her own weakness and quite pathetic.

_You're seventeen years-old for Merlin's sake, grow up!_

_You don't need your mummy and daddy or sister to see you off to school._

Lily still wished that they had come. Perhaps it was because she'd never done this alone, but she felt somehow ridiculously vulnerable. As she passed closer to the barrier she noticed a lot of the muggles staring at her. At first she thought maybe she'd stupidly left something distinctly magical on her person, like robes perhaps. It took her several moments to realize that it was probably her sniffling and quiet sobbing that caused their stares.

Swiping angrily at her eyes Lily straightened her back and waited for some of the nosier muggles to turn away and continue their business before she casually leaned against the barrier to platform 9 and ¾. The instant that she crossed into the hubbub of the magical world her spirits lifted a little.

Lily wandered through the surprisingly sparse crowd of students and parents on platform 9 and 3/4. She knew that she was a bit early, but normally the platform would've been teeming with excited students, yowling cats, agitated owls and anxious parents. All around her the busy babble of parents seeing their children off for a term would've bombarded her ears.

"Have you packed enough underwear?"

"MUM! Say that a bit louder would you?"

"Now _don't_ loose this, I'll not be buying you a new one!"

"_No_ letters home from Dumbledore this year, alright?"

This year though, the small population all seemed to be clustered together in tight groups very nearby the train. They spoke in hushed, hurried words and all the parent's voices seemed thick with worry.

Lily sighed. Looking around, she realized that this was less than half of the normal number of students to attend Hogwarts. A look at the train showed a large number of still empty compartments. She thought there ought to have been a lot more bodies hanging out of windows shouting goodbyes and being given last minute sweets and hugs.

In the past year the hostility towards muggle-born students at Hogwarts had grown to remarkable levels. She could remember just last year breaking up a fight between two first years—a Slytherin and a muggle-born Gryffindor. It hadn't been pretty. There had been unexplained attacks and disappearances for years now in the _Daily_ _Prophet _as well, mostly to muggle oriented families.

What had once seemed like random disappearances with no connections or patterns had now streamed into select communities of people vanishing. What was more frightening was that the unknown captors seemed to be growing bolder. Just last week someone had been taken from a crowded Diagon Alley and somehow nobody had seen it happen. The whole idea of being persecuted by mistake of birth scared Lily more than she was willing to admit.

As she thought about it, a shiver ran up her spine. She tucked her head, feeling quite isolated without a huddle of people surrounding her and decided against waiting to meet her friends since they'd likely not be along for another half hour or so. Instead, she boarded the train and quickly located the compartment that she and her fellow dorm mates occupied each year.

Lily stashed her trunk away in the overhead, paced the compartment twice, managed to chew off a finger nail until it bled and finally decided that if she was going to come early and set a good example as Head Girl, she might as well go ahead and wait in the Head's compartment to find out who'd been appointed Head Boy. That in mind, she pulled her trunk back out, located her school robes and Head Girl pin, and set off for the lavatory at the end of the car to change.

On her way out of the restroom Lily caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and was shocked. The reflection staring back at her seemed much older than it should. The lines in her face went beyond a seventeen year-old girl. She had deep, purple marks under her eyes that, when she fingered them, felt sore like bruises. She couldn't remember when everything had gotten to this point. She rubbed her temples and watched the stranger in the mirror do the same.

_Sleep._

_I need to sleep and wake up with a different life._

Lily grimaced at her pale, pitiful reflection. She knew she should be getting to the Head's compartment soon. Finally giving up on her sad complexion, Lily left the girls lavatory with a little sigh of defeat and collided with something solid and broad.

"Oof!" she gasped, stepping back and trying to maintain her balance. For a moment she saw everything in doubles, making it quite difficult to identify the boy she'd run into. Lily shook her head slightly to clear her vision and met a pair of familiar black eyes.

"Lily?"

"Severus," Lily sighed. The bad day was officially complete. There was nothing else that could make it any worse. She'd lost her sister, alienated her family and now she was staring into the eyes of the boy who'd been her best friend for five years before he'd gone and destroyed everything.

_Please just strike me with lightening and get it over with._

"I…I tried calling over the summer."

"I know." She nodded. She wished that her voice sounded a bit colder and little less desperate. As things had been going, she was just glad that she'd not broken down and cried. Not a moment had gone by since the fight they'd had in front of the portrait hole that she hadn't thought of him. All of their sixth year she'd skirted him in the halls and he'd glared at her angrily, like he'd been betrayed. Then, over the summer, it was like something in Severus Snape snapped and he'd tried endlessly to contact her. She'd wanted to hate him, but she missed her best friend. Still, she'd never gotten up the courage to face him either.

"I—I," he started stammering. It was surreal. This boy, who had been Lily's best friend since they were children, was afraid to speak to her now. He was unsure of what to say, "I just wanted to—"

"Please don't, Sev," She sighed, and the nickname seemed sticky somehow when she said it, like it had grown moldy with lack of use. "Not today. I just can't do this today." Tears pricked at the corners of her eyes and she wanted to get away before he saw them.

"Why? What's happened? Are you okay? You _know_ you can tell me anything-" She heard the worry in his voice. He'd always worried about her too much.

"You and I both know that's not true anymore." She watched as Severus worked his mouth searching for something to say, but Lily held her hand up to silence any further discussion. She felt drained. She had nothing left to give but the truth.

_Why did I think this would be easier if I put it off for a year?_

"Sev, you told me once that it made no difference, being muggle-born or pureblooded." Lily saw the hurt in his eyes and knew that he remembered the moment too. Hating how weak her voice was, she plowed on. She had started it and now she had to finish it. "You lied to me, Severus, to protect me I thought. But who are you protecting now? Where do your allegiances lie?"

"Lily, I swear I only—" He was begging, but she stopped him. She could see sweat dripping of the end of his nose, or maybe it was tears. Bolstering every ounce of the strength she possessed she mustered her resolve and met the eyes of a stranger she once knew.

"It's too late, Sev. I wish it wasn't, but it is. I thought all summer about facing you…forgiving you," Her voice broke. "But it's too late. You've made your choice and," Lily paused, knowing that this would be the end for certain, "the worst part is that you've made my choice too. I know what crowd you've been hanging around just as well as you do. I know what they stand for and what you've chosen to stand for as well. Did you think it wouldn't matter to me?"

Lily felt a wave of guilt course through her. Anguish. She shut her eyes and couldn't bring herself to face him any longer. She felt a deep sense of self-loathing.

_How did we come to goodbye?_

It was the final blow to their slow dying friendship which had been simmering since third year and had been painfully severed a year ago, and yet she still felt like she needed to say this to make it all real in her head. She had to be the one to deliver the final strike. Logically, she knew that the fault lay with both of them. He had chosen the wrong crowd. He'd always levitated towards those with power. She had judged him though, when she should've just been a friend.

She shut her eyes and heard his angry words from that day.

_Mudblood_.

_That's all that he sees._

It had bounced around in her head for hours after he'd said it. It had kept her from seeking him out the past year to sort everything out. It had kept her from answering his persistent calls. Severus, her best friend since childhood, was gone to her now. She felt bile rise to her throat and quickly dropped her gaze hoping that the floor would open up and swallow her.

"I have to go, Sev," She whispered. Finally she met his eyes, and moved forward, saying goodbye the only way that she could. Leaning into his ear she whispered, "I'm sorry, but we're standing on different sides now." She brushed against his cheek and felt his tears as she placed a soft, chaste kiss there. Her own tears made her vision blur.

"I love you, Lily," Severus said so quietly that she wanted to pretend that she hadn't heard him. Instead she nodded imperceptibly.

"I know." Lily whispered back, hoping that he wouldn't hear, but knowing that he had. There was nothing left to say between them, so she shut her eyes and waited until his retreating footsteps died away. Once she was certain he was gone she allowed herself to open her eyes. The empty corridor seemed somehow twice as large as it had been when he was with her.


	3. Chapter 3

**Story: Facing Fear**

**Summary: **The war is on the horizon and Lily has had her side chosen for her, but with so much tragedy surrounding her young life and all her ambitions, can she pull through stronger than before or will this war will break apart everything she's ever known?

**Disclaimer: **I own nothing.

**Chapter Three:** **The Bargain**

_Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?_

_~Abraham Lincoln_

The Head's compartment was nothing to scoff at. It was marvelously larger than any two people could ever need for a train ride with large, plush, cushioned benches, thick velvety drapery, a Wizarding wireless, and a private bathroom. Lily wondered what the Head's private tower must be like if this was just a glimpse of the compartment.

Lily could enjoy none of it though. She sat down on one of the comfortable benches and pulled her knees up to her chest, trying to keep her shoes off of the expensive material even though she knew she could get rid of any blemishes that they might leave.

Fingering the shiny badge pinned to her chest which proclaimed "HG" in large, script-like letters, she remembered the impromptu party her parents had thrown for her upon receiving the honor of being selected Head Girl.

Petunia had come home from a date with Vernon Dursley to find the living room covered in streamers made from bathroom tissue and Lily sitting on the sofa wrapped in a purple bed sheet, serving as a royal robe, her Head Girl pin stuck to the outside of it and a dish turned upside down on her head as a crown.

Her mother, having had little resources on such short notice, had lined the bottom of a cake plate with chocolate-covered biscuits and then dolloped whipped cream over the top of each one.

Lily had barely been able to contain her laughter at the mortification on Petunia's face as she'd entered the chaos. "What the hell is going on?" she'd shrieked at Lily like the younger girl might have put some sort of spell on their parents to make them act so oddly.

"We're celebrating your sister's appointment as Head Girl!" her mother had exclaimed, mirth gushing from her voice. She was seated on the floor, pretending to look up at Lily full of awe and wonder. "I never thought when I gave birth to that chubby-cheeked little red-head that she would grow up to be someone of such great importance," she said, somehow managing to keep a completely serious voice. The party had been a great one. It was something completely like her parents to do too.

All joking aside, they had been really proud of her. Lily cringed when she realized that it had only been a month ago that they'd been happy like that. Had it really taken so little for her to lose her family?

Something wet hit the hand she had folded on top of her knees and she sniffled and realized that she was crying.

_Super._

The last thing she needed was to be crying when the prefects showed up looking to her for leadership. No sooner did she have the thought than someone had opened the door.

Lily looked up in alarm to meet the startled eyes of James Potter.

_Of course, the mortification is complete._

There was a special sort of loathing that went on between James Potter —or as Lily preferred to refer to him: James-_bloody_-Potter— and Lily Evans. The brunt of it was based on the fact that Lily found him completely unbearable. His black hair was short and in a constant state of chaos that made Lily long to lay it flat and glue it to his overgrown head. He was arrogant, self-fulfilled and nothing but a bully, but most importantly, he was _not_ a prefect and had no business in the compartment.

"Evans, are you crying?" a voice said behind him, quite shocked. Lily could honestly say now that the powers-that-be were making some colossal cosmic joke out of her day. Sirius Black, the one who'd spoken, was like James Potter's evil twin. The two of them were always marching about like gods. Sirius had his hair grown neglectfully long to seem devil-may-care and had dark brooding eyes, giving cheeky grins to all the girls that he hadn't made it into bed with yet. Everyone knew about the rift between him and his dark-arts loving family and it gave him this air of intrigue that was almost alluring, except that Sirius got his jollies off of picking on people and she just couldn't see him as any different from his family until he too stopped preying on the weak.

"What?" Peter Pettigrew, always the last boy in the group to catch on, peeked through the arms of his friends to gaze at her like a tiger in the zoo. He was shorter than all of his friends and quite rounded like a beach ball, but he was a cheerful bloke and extremely friendly if not often quiet and shy.

She heard Peter pull in a sharp intake of breath and assumed that Remus Lupin, the fourth and final member of James Potter's group of friends and the only bearable one, had elbowed Peter. Remus Lupin was a Gryffindor prefect, like Lily had been last year, and was one of the kindest and quietest boys she'd ever met. He was fairly handsome though his sandy hair was thinning and wispy around his head and there were deep purple marks under his eyes like he hadn't been sleeping.

Lily had always had a soft spot for Remus. Rumor was that he was an ill sort of boy, but Lily had known his secret for years. She'd first discovered it when her best friend at the time, Severus, had mentioned to her the pattern of Remus' absences and his consequential stays in the hospital wing. Though Lily had never confronted the tired boy about it, nor confirmed with Severus that she shared his suspicion, she'd known for quite some time.

Together the four boys made up, not only the seventh year Gryffindor boys, but also a group of troublemakers for the school who called themselves the Marauders.

_Bloody Marauders! _

_Could this day get any better?_

Lily felt that she definitely didn't need this right now. Remus pushed past his friends to join her on the very comfortable bench she took up and his piercing, pensive eyes met hers. "What's up, Lily?" he asked carefully.

Lily tried to laugh off what she was feeling, but the laugh bubbled in her throat and actually ended up sounding more like a sob. If she hadn't had her head down in shame she would've seen the four boys exchange very worried looks with each other.

"Lily?" Remus asked again.

Collecting herself, Lily picked her head up and said, "Nothing. What are all of them doing here, Remus?" She thought that maybe she could get control of her emotions if she tried putting on her bossy, prefect voice but she heard herself wavering and knew that they could too.

"Oh," Remus looked taken aback for only a moment before he cast his eyes to his friends and laughed. "I was just showing the new Head Boy where the quarters were. He's never been a prefect so he didn't know where to go."

The air went thin in Lily's lungs as James Potter, the bane of her existence, stepped forward sheepishly and ran a hand back through his hair. There was a shiny badge like hers pinned to his chest. "_Potter_ is Head Boy?" She blurted in incredulity before she could stop herself. "Is Dumbledore completely mental? Remus _you_ were supposed to be Head Boy!"

Remus shrugged, looking uncomfortably back at her, "I didn't want it." He said.

Lily wanted to die right then. "This can't be happening." She sighed, dropping her head back into her hands. Somehow she wanted to cry even harder. Admittedly she and James had been operating quite a bit more civilly since last year when he'd started acting a bit more mature, but that didn't change their feelings for one another in the slightest. Tears welled up in her eyes again and she wished that she was alone.

_How am I supposed to work with him for an entire year?_

"Lily what's wrong?" Remus asked again.

"Everything!" she said quietly, speaking into her knees and trying not to start sobbing.

"I think we should go." She heard Sirius say after a moment of silence. She waited until the door clicked shut to look back up.

James was still standing there, awkward and aloof and why hadn't he left yet?

"Why are you still here?" She groused, trying to channel her pain into anger. "Go follow your minions!" she waved her hand frantically towards the door.

James looked at her strangely, squinting his deep, hazel eyes at her like he couldn't quite focus. "What's wrong, Evans? Really? This isn't like you."

"Oh, how would you know what's _like_ me! You barely know me! All you've done the past several years is annoy the hell out of me! How do you know it's not _you _that's got me so upset, huh?" She shrieked, feeling very much like a banshee. The compartment must've been sound-proofed she would think later when she looked back at that moment.

"Just because we don't get along doesn't mean I don't know you, Evans." James said calmly. The fact that he was playing the voice of reason made her even angrier. Lily wanted to scream in frustration. How dare he look so calm and casual when her world was spontaneously combusting? Her eyes felt dry but didn't seem to be having trouble supplying her with fresh tears and her face felt puffy with crying.

He of course looked stunning in that rugged, devil-may-care sort of way that made Lily want to scream. His eyes pierced hers and wouldn't allow her to drop his gaze or pull away."What happened to you, Lily?" He asked more carefully. The sound of her first name made an unwelcome shiver run up her spine.

"I don't want to talk about it." She sighed, lowering her voice and brushing the tears off of her cheeks.

"Okay." James sat silently for a moment. "Just so you know, you can tell me." He said.

She sighed and shrugged, searching for a change of subject. "So what's the scam, Potter? Why are you acting like a human being?"

James sighed and shook his head. "There's no scam, Evans." He said.

"Sure." She nodded sarcastically while she wiped away any remaining traces of tears. "Come on, let me guess. You and your friends are planning to charm the pants off of the school this year and be perfect little angles and then you'll reveal at the ending feast that you've secretly been ooey-gooey trolls all this time."

James laughed in spite of the slight offense he took to the barb. "Trolls aren't that clever," He told her. "Besides, I thought you always wanted me to grow up. Maybe I have. Either way, you're going to be working with me all year. It wouldn't hurt to be on friendly terms."

She could definitely agree with that. Eyeing him suspiciously she weighed her options and nodded, but reaching for his outstretched hand she paused. "Three conditions," she said, holding up her fingers instead and ticking them off for emphasis. "No flirting with me, no disgusting innuendos and _no_ asking me out."

James laughed a little and held out his hand. "_Never_?" he said with a smirk.

At a loss for words she scoffed. "Would it make you feel better if I said 'until further notice?'" He nodded and she laughed. "Fine. Do we have a deal or not Potter?" She finally held her hand out in agreement.

Deal." He said as she shook his hand.

The door slid open and the first prefects arrived with curiosity written on their faces. Remus and his seventh year Gryffindor partner Dorcas Meadowes, who also just happened to be Lily's best friend, came through the door and paused in their tracks. Without saying a word Dorcas shot Lily and James, who were still shaking hands, quizzical looks. Dorcas was a petite girl with brunette hair that reached to the back of her knees. She was strong, stout, and loud, and absolutely perfect in Lily's opinion. She was also always teasing Lily that she secretly loved James Potter.

Lily knew she'd have a lot of explaining to do that night based on the looks she was getting from her best friend but, for the first time that day, she didn't care. She laughed quietly and finally dropped James' hand and thought maybe the world wouldn't come to an end after all.


	4. Chapter 4

**Story: Facing Fear**

**Summary: **The war is on the horizon and Lily has had her side chosen for her, but with so much tragedy surrounding her young life and all her ambitions, can she pull through stronger than before or will this war will break apart everything she's ever known?

**Disclaimer: **Not mine.

**Chapter Four: Slowly Friends **

_Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend._

_~Martin Luther King Jr._

Lily watched with an unexplainable sort sadness as rain drops crashed onto the stone walls and walkways of Hogwarts. From the window ledge near the chair where she sat, she was being peppered with tiny droplets of mist which made her skin feel clammy and cold. She watched as the two hours worth of rain had created a sort of river across the walkway below. Several first years were hopping in and out of it. The water splashed all the way up to their elbows. It would be curfew soon.

_Rain, rain, go away, come again another day._

She was supposed to be finishing up her Runes essay due on Monday, but she couldn't seem to keep herself focused on the subject. The first several weeks of school had gone by in a flurry of classes, homework assignments and her Head Girl duties. It seemed that all the teachers were cracking down about NEWTs. The first day of classes had yielded nothing but lectures about the importance of paying attention and keeping up with grades. Though Lily had never been stupid, in fact she had some of the highest grades in her year, every time she thought about sitting for those tests she'd get a nasty squirm in her stomach.

On top of the extra loads of homework, her duties as the Head Girl were getting a little intense. She found it hard to finish a three-hour study session with her dorm mates and then walk rounds with James for another two hours.

All of it left Lily filled with a deep sense of inadequacy for the position she'd been given. James Potter on the other hand certainly wasn't having any trouble adjusting. In fact, he seemed quite in his element as Head Boy and hadn't even been abusing his power, something which greatly amazed Lily. He also wasn't worrying all the time like she was and she hated him for it.

Lily had to grudgingly admit though that she was growing to respect James if not like him. He'd been remarkably helpful in the prefect meetings they'd had so far and he'd taken to his duties, including rounds instead of late night pranks with no arguments and only occasionally wistful references to his 'glory days.'

Lily wasn't sleeping as much as she felt she should be. The private tower for the Head Boy and Girl was extravagantly beautiful and looked quite like the Gryffindor common room in red and gold. Her bed was larger than the four poster in her dorm had been and having her own bathroom and not having to race for the shower was a nice change. Still, she felt lonely without her best friends always around. She often returned to the Gryffindor common room on the weekends to catch up, but it wasn't the same.

She could still remember her first night in the private tower with him. She'd been worried he'd try something shifty or at least be annoying, instead he'd taken his room and silently disappeared for about an hour, leaving Lily in the silence of the common area feeling rather helplessly alone.

When he'd returned freshly showered in a pair of flannel pajama bottoms and a rough-looking white t-shirt he'd sat on the sofa across from her and asked, "Aren't you going to bed?"

Lily had shrugged. "I thought about it, but it's too quite in there."

"Missing your friends already?"

Lily looked up with an acidic remark on her tongue but when she met James' eyes he looked quite sincere. She nodded instead. "It's weird that I used to hate it when Dorcas snored, but now I miss it."

James laughed. "I know the feeling. Who would've thought that I'd grow attached to Sirius' inability to be quiet for more than a minute at a time."

Lily had laughed and finally forced herself off to the shower. When she'd come back out she found that James had left his bedroom door open and was snoring softly. The gesture had been surprisingly kind and she'd left her door open every night she'd spent in the tower since then. She'd been surprised by how comforted she felt when she went to bed that night, knowing that James was only a room away, but sleep still came haltingly.

"Not thinking about jumping, are you?" James said from behind her, bringing her back to the present, her unfinished Runes essay and the opened window. It was funny that in only three weeks she'd grown so accustomed to his presence that even in her spacey state of mind she was not really startled by his intrusion.

"Wouldn't matter," she shrugged, turning to face him slowly. "It's rained so long now that the ground would be too soft to cause damage."

He smirked, "Don't be so sure. I've fallen from some pretty deadly heights in Quidditch and no matter how much raining there was it always hurt about the same."

"But you lived."

"True," he conceded. He was wearing his uniform with his tie hanging loosely and the sleeves of his button-up rolled to his elbows. A bag was slung over one shoulder, it's contents spilling out of the sides and one seam looked terribly neglected and in need of repair. With his hair up at all angles he looked quite harried to sound so casual.

Lily couldn't help but giggle, "You look like you've been caught in a hurricane." She put a hand to her mouth to try and contain her mirth, but holding back her laugh brought tears to her eyes.

James chuckled too. "Glad to see my state of disarray brings a smile at least," he noted. "You've been mopey all week."

Lily stopped laughing, every intention of a reprimand in mind, but when she opened her mouth she found her self saying, "I know," instead. "I'm sorry. I'm not sure what's wrong with me."

"You don't have to apologize, Evans." He ran a hand through his hair. Lily wondered if he would ever decide what to call her. He constantly changed back and forth between her first and last name. It was exhausting really. She never knew what to expect of him and uncertainty drove Lily madder than anything.

When she didn't respond, James turned to leave and for some reason she felt the desperate need to make him stay a bit longer.

"Are you staying in the tower tonight?" she asked. She'd noticed, though she honestly wasn't sure if she was supposed to, that James also spent several nights away fro m the Head's tower.

_Please be staying…_

He shook his head in response. "Nah, the guys will think I've completely sold out if I don't stay up all night telling them all the ways that I've driven you insane this week." He teased.

_Damn._

Lily smiled. "Right," she nodded. "Okay."

"Why?"

She shrugged, "Honestly," she admitted, "I don't like being up here alone." It was a hard admission for her, but she thought he'd probably guessed it on his own at this point anyway. She wasn't very good at being subtle and living in such close quarters she thought she might almost consider James Potter a friend, or at least not an enemy anymore.

James nodded pensively and dropped his bag at the door to his private room. "I'm actually headed there after we finish rounds so, shall we?" he asked, nodding towards the portrait hole.

Lily gave one last glance out of the open window at the flowing water, noticing that the first years had retired, and then nodded and hopped down from the ledge. "Yeah, let's go."

Stepping out into the hallway James turned to face her and grinned, "So whose turn is it?" he asked.

She smirked. "Mine," She answered.

It was their first night of awkwardly silent rounds when James had come up with idea of playing a game to get to know each other. "It'll make it less awkward if we aren't stuck living with a stranger," he'd said.

Lily had laughed, "Potter, as you've recently pointed out, you've known me for six years."

"You know what I mean."

So they'd decided on a game of twenty questions which had rapidly developed into something closer to two hundred and twenty questions.

Lily had to admit that when they started playing she realized that there was a lot about the boy that she didn't know and she thought she probably looked forward to rounds much more than was normal.

"So," she said slowly and deliberately, "I already know your middle name is Harold, after your father, your favorite color is, of course, red, you have a cat named Humphrey, and _obviously_ your best friends." She wracked her brain for anything she'd ever wondered about him. "Oh, I've got it," she smirked, "What do your parents do?"

"My mum is a healer at Saint Mungo's," he said, "and my Dad was an Auror." Lily felt like she ought to have known that. Even though they weren't exactly best friends, he _had_ been in the same house as her for the past six years. Of course, she supposed he didn't know—or understand—what her parents did either. Then something occurred to her.

"Was?" she asked carefully.

James nodded. "He died two years ago." There was something wistful in the way he said, like the wound had healed but the want hadn't vanished.

Lily wracked her brain for anything back in fifth year which would've indicated such a tragedy. "I'm so sorry James." She said softly, feeling his ache as her own. She knew what it was to long for a parent. Even when she hadn't lost hers to death, the pain of loss was crippling at times.

He shrugged and faced her. "It's okay." He said and he honestly looked okay too. "He was older, both my parents are. He just got sick. It was a long time ago."

"Still," Lily sighed. "Were you close?"

James nodded. "Dad was pretty amazing." He told her, giving her a smile like he was letting her in on a secret. "He had this way of walking into a room and just filling it, you know. I always wanted to be like him, to be that great and respected."

Lily didn't say anything, but in her mind the box labeled 'James Potter' was suddenly filled with a lot of information to be analyzed later.

After a moment of not entirely awkward silence James turned to Lily. "That was like three questions, you know?" he smirked. "It's definitely my turn and I've been holding onto this one for days waiting for rounds. What's your favorite song?"

She laughed.

_What an odd question?_

"That's you're big question?" She giggled. She paused and tapped a finger to her chin, trying to decide if she was willing to be honest, "I guess my favorite would have to be _At Last, _by Etta James." He met her eyes quizzically so Lily obligingly hummed the first few notes. "It's an old muggle song, my parents' song." She grinned at him, "Is that stupid?" He shook his head and smiled at her and she tried to think of something else to ask him.

A strange sense of disappointment rushed over her when the two of them reached the portrait guarding Gryffindor tower two hours later. She walked with her head straight and heard his footsteps falling behind. He had been 'deciding' for nearly fifteen minutes what his question was going to be. She sighed. He'd done this every night, always hanging his last question in the air until the very last moment.

Just as she was about to speak the password she felt his hand on her upper arm holding her in place. She turned slowly and saw tension on his face.

"Finally come up with a question?" she said softly.

"Yeah." He paused and something in her stomach crawled uncomfortably. "I was wondering if you wanted to hang out at Hogsmede this weekend. Together. Since Heads are encouraged to be there anyway."

Lily gave him a suspicious look.

_Just when things were going so well._

"Are you asking me out, Potter?"

To her surprise he laughed. "Of course not." He said. "That would be against the rules. But last I checked friends could hang out together and I thought we might consider each other friends now."

A layer of ice wrapped around her throat. She chewed her lip, felt butterflies in her stomach and didn't understand why the offer made her so nervous. "Just as friends?" she asked slowly.

"I swear." He nodded and held his hand out again just like he had on the train a few weeks before.

"Swear you won't try to put on any moves?" she continued.

He laughed, rolled his eyes and nodded. "I _swear_."

Against her better judgment she nodded too and took his hand just as the portrait hole door swung open.

"Oh my, what do we have here?" a silky voice cooed. Lily looked up red faced and grimaced. The seventh year Gryffindor girls looked back at her with knowing smirks. It wasn't surprising that Marlene McKinnon was the one who had spoken since, of all the girls, she held the most charisma and boldness. She was a dark-haired beauty with deep copper-colored eyes who was well-known as someone who was blunt to a fault and virtually incapable of keeping her thoughts and opinions to herself.

"We've been wondering where you were." Alice Cromwell said carefully. She self-consciously swept her long blonde hair behind her shoulder. Alice was a lovely girl with long blonde hair and a soft, round face. She was incredibly shy and quiet around those who didn't know her well, but Lily knew that beneath that she had a spark just waiting to be discovered.

"Yeah. What's going on, kids?" Mary McDonald joked with wide, suspicious eyes. Mary had soft features and strawberry blonde hair. Of all of Lily's friends she was the only one who too shared muggle-parentage, her mother was a witch and her father was a muggle. Mary always seem so delicate to Lily.

"We've just finished rounds." Lily said quickly, her heart pounding in her ears.

"And do you two _always_ hold hands when you do rounds?" Marlene smirked.

Lily felt like her skin was burning as she looked down and realized that she had never let go of his hand. Dropping it quickly she looked up and gasped.

"Let's get to dinner, Lils, you've got some explaining to do." Dorcas laughed grabbing Lily's arm and dragging her off with the other girls giggling behind. Lily wished the floor would open up and swallow her.

They harped and giggled all through dinner while Lily kept adamantly quiet. Later on that night in the common room the questioning continued. "Honestly Lils, you two looked quite friendly." Mary noted as the girls sat over a friendly game of exploding snap.

"Don't go there." Lily sighed, her face as red as her roots. She sat in an armchair behind Dorcas, watching the game from a safe distance. She supposed it was the muggle in her, but she could never warm to idea of cards that exploded in ones face. "I'd be exhausted if all we ever did was fight. We _do_ have to work together quite a lot, you know?"

"Sounds to me like someone is getting defensive," Marlene chuckled. Biting her lip and examining the cards in her hand. "Something to hide Ms. Evans?" she chuckled giving Lily a clearly suspicious look.

"Me and Potter?" Lily scoffed, throwing her head back in aggravation. This conversation had gone on too long.

"You were the one holding his hand, not us." Mary noted.

"We were talking!" Lily said. "Honestly, it was a simple handshake and you're all blowing it up to be this huge scandal. The idea of me and Potter is absolutely absurd. We're such complete opposites."

"You know what they say about opposites attracting, Lils," Dorcas chortled, taping the deck of cards and causing a brief explosion to go off in the direction of the other two girls. "We all know you're a complete masochist when it comes to things that you don't enjoy. Why should Potter be any different?"

"I'm not a masochist." Lily said defensively, leaning back from the smoke and watching her friends cough it out of their lungs. "I'm not the one playing with exploding cards, am I?"

"Touché," Dorcas nodded. She leaned her head back onto Lily's legs and grinned. "So what were you two agreeing on then?" she asked after a beat of silence?"

"What?"

"Well, you said you were shaking hands. What were you agreeing on?"

Lily bit her lip and wondered if she could come up with a decent lie quickly, but she'd never been very good at lying. She shrugged. "He asked me to hang out at Hogsmede with him tomorrow. Heads are encouraged to go together and keep an eye on the kiddies." She said very quickly.

She grimaced as four pairs of eyes met hers, blinking in shock.

"You're going on a date with him?" Mary choked.

"No!"

"Lily a day in Hogsmede is a _date_!" Marlene shrieked giddily.

"No it's not. _That _was the agreement. We're just going as friends!" She rose from her seat and stomped out of the portrait hole in a furry, ignoring her friends' good-natured apologies. She stormed all the way up to her empty Head's dormitory, slamming her bedroom door shut and cursing her temper. Her pride wouldn't allow her to go back to her friends and she felt at least partially justified in her anger. They had no right to question her judgment. Still, she would wonder late into the night as she lay fuming in her bed what had made her so upset.


	5. Chapter 5

**Story: Facing Fear**

**Summary: **The war is on the horizon and Lily has had her side chosen for her, but with so much tragedy surrounding her young life and all her ambitions, can she pull through stronger than before or will this war will break apart everything she's ever known?

**A/N: **I have to say a huge thank you to Random-Musings for two friendly reviews. I'd just about given up hope that anyone was reading when I saw that magic little alert in my e-mail. This chapter is dedicated to my only reader . I hope I don't disappoint!

**Chapter Five: A Surprisingly Pleasant Afternoon**

_Two may talk together under the same roof for many years, _

_yet never really meet..."  
__~ Mary Catherwood_

"Really, James," Lily laughed as he stepped out of Honeydukes and moved towards the next shop with purpose. "Zonko's?"

"Come on. Just for a second, I promise." He begged, batting his lashes like a giddy school girl. Lily laughed and eventually agreed.

She had to admit, James had been surprisingly well behaved so far on their 'not-date' as her friends were having fun calling it. He'd bought her a drink at the Three Broomsticks and been a good sport about going into the menagerie to ogle at kittens. She supposed it was only fair to go with him into his favorite shop.

While the outside of shop seemed quaint and small, inside there were more kids than Lily thought Hogwarts could even hold, all teeming and shouting excitedly about new products. A long line wrapped around the front of the store towards the check-out counter.

James set off with a purpose towards the fireworks, promising not to get anything contraband. Lily picked up a red, leather-bound book titled "One Hundred Ways to Hoodwink your Friends" by Tash Masters. She flipped through the pages, amused to see the same animated drawing lurking behind corners of each page ready to spring on his 'friends.' When James came back his arms were laden with parcels and the two joined the outrageous line at the very back.

"James Potter!" The check-out girl cried when they finally reached the front counter and James had unloaded his prizes onto the counter. Lily looked up surprised. The woman was obviously a few years older than her with beautiful golden hair, a small face and large blue eyes. Her waist was slim and figure petite and she smiled like she knew the Mona Lisa's secret. "Are you cheating on me?"

Lily wasn't sure who to be more indignant with until James slung his arm playfully around Lily's shoulder and shrugged. "I've told you Nat, you're just too old for me."

The pretty woman chuckled softly and began ringing him up. "You should know better than to bring a woman's age into any sort of squabble, James." She laughed.

James nodded and apologized then, turning to Lily, he said, "Lily, this is Nathalie Parks, she graduated from Hogwarts-"

"Three years ago." Lily nodded, placing the name. She turned to meet Nathalie's eyes and grinned. "I remember. You were Head Girl. I'm Lily Evans." She held her hand out to the girl politely and Nathalie took it.

"Evans, is it? You're muggle-born then?" She asked a little too loudly for Lily's taste. Lily felt the color drain from her face and gave Nathalie a hard look.

"That's right."

"Oh," Nathalie laughed softly, and waved a hand in dismissal. "Don't worry. I didn't mean it like that. That's me as well, muggle-born. We're a dying breed you and I, practically extinct." Several students nearby looked at her with wide, shocked eyes.

"Nat!" James voice was harsh with warning and startled Lily only because she couldn't remember a time when she'd heard James Potter scold anyone.

"Oh, pipe down, Potter." Nathalie sighed. She finished bagging James parcels and began untying the blue Zonko's apron she was wearing.

"There's a fine line between defiance and recklessness." He told her, keeping his voice low.

"A fact I suspect you and your friends know better than most."

The two of them stared at each other with hard and unyielding eyes. Lily looked between the two of them and finally coughed to break up the stretching, uncomfortable silence.

"So, Nathalie, how long have you been working here?" she asked, hoping to change the subject.

The blond turned to Lily, breaking her stare with James reluctantly. "Since I graduated." She answered. "I was originally only here for a part-time position, but Thad, that's the owner, he's getting older and he asked me to stick around and help out." She paused and then gave James a devilish grin. "So tell me Lily, are you keeping Potter in line?" she asked.

"As much as one can, I suppose." Lily replied with a grin thankful for the change of mood that settled over the group.

"Good." Nathalie nodded. "Listen, I'm off for lunch before we get another crowd." She smiled at the pair. "Don't get into too much trouble and tell Sirius I said hello." She muttered with a wink. Then she gave James a quick hug, waved to Lily and headed out the door, turning back one last time with another wave before it shut behind her.

Lily hesitated for a moment but couldn't keep the question silent. "Did the two of you date?" she said, trying to sound less curious than she was.

James laughed. "She's a little old for me don't you think?" he answered.

Lily gave him a pointed look. "You know her awfully well for casual acquaintances in a joke shop."

James chuckled and then conceded with a shrug. "All right. She and Sirius have been dating on and off for about two years." He finally answered.

Lily tried not to look as shocked as she felt at the news. Not only had Lily had no idea that Sirius was even capable of that sort of commitment, she also couldn't understand how an older girl like Nathalie who was obviously very clever would want to be with Sirius.

Understanding her look James sighed and shrugged. "I think that they get each other." He told her.

"Get each other?" she reached up to the counter and took one of his bags while he grabbed the other two.

"Yeah." He continued, pausing briefly to thank her for her help. "You know, both of them come from families that don't really understand them. I don't think they're in love or anything, but there's something there." He shrugged.

Lily thought she understood better than James about families, but she didn't elaborate, simply nodded. "Where to next?" she asked as they stepped out into the cool Scottish air.

James turned to her with a smile. "There is someone _else_ I could take you to meet." He said. "If you wanted." The wind blew his hair and he shivered involuntarily.

Biting her lip, Lily nodded slowly, almost on impulse.

"Where are we going?" Lily asked several minutes later when they passed Dervish and Bangs, the furthest she'd even been into Hogsmeade.

James laughed and turned to face her. "To see a friend of mine." He replied. "She lives just at the end of the street, near the hill."

"She?" Lily asked, intrigued.

James didn't respond as the incline became a bit steeper. When they finally stopped they stood before a small, cozy cottage which had been well-lived in. The yellow shutters hung at odd angles on their hinges, shut, but not entirely covering the openings. The thatching on the roof looked old and weather-weary and Lily was certain that only magic kept the weather out. The door was painted bright red and as she moved closer she saw that the path to the door was spotted with painted red paw prints.

She looked at James curiously but he didn't respond. Instead he nodded towards the door and shouted, "Mopsy!"

In a moment the door swung open to pandemonium. A dozen or so dogs emerged from the small home all barking madly followed by a squat, plump woman in her forties.

Mopsy was rather rounded at all edges with a pair of glasses so thick that her eyes looked larger than her head could hold. In one arm she held a small terrier, wriggling against her grip, with the other she reached into the pocket of her ratty robe and retrieved some dog biscuits.

"James!" she cried, delighted when she landed eyes on him. "Finally come to see me? I was wondering if you'd show up this term." she said.

James nodded and opened the small gate which kept Mopsy's overgrown yard contained. The moment the gate opened a stream of yapping creatures tumbled out, stumbling over each other as they leapt at James and Lily.

Lily laughed as one large, black beast jumped at her, resting his front paws on her shoulders with a great slobbery tongue on her cheek. "Well, hello." She laughed softly. "Who are you?"

Mopsy giggled. "That's my Snuffles," she explained. "He comes and goes, poor dear. I suspect he's a stray, but he never stays long."

"Snuffles," James laughed heartily, shaking his head.

Lily smiled and put her hands on either side of the dog's face, shaking his ears and cooing at him. The dog barked excitedly, jumping down and turning circles around her legs.

"Come in dears, come in." Mopsy said, looking around at the surrounding houses where people were staring out their windows in disgust. "I've just put some tea on, please come visit." She turned to Lily suddenly saying, "Sorry dear, I didn't get your name."

Lily laughed. "I'm Lily." She said, holding her hand out politely.

Mopsy chuckled and pulled her into a tight, musty hug instead. With every move Mopsy made Lily could see puffs of dust lift and vanish from the aged overcoat. "James," the older woman chuckled, "Why didn't you tell me you were dating such a beauty."

James opened his mouth to correct her, but Lily just didn't think it would be worth it to try and explain the complication that was her and James' shaky relationship.

"He's so modest." Lily replied instead as she followed Mospy into the surprisingly warm and tidy cottage, James trailing behind, completely shocked.

Two hours later, with Snuffles great shaggy head resting in her lap, James chuckling about some story Mopsy had just finished and a stomach full of tea and cakes, Lily looked down at her watch and gasped.

"We really ought to get going." She said grudgingly. "Most of the students will be heading back soon."

Mopsy nodded her understanding and rose from her seat. Lily knelt down to Snuffles level. Generally, she considered herself a cat person, but she felt a strange attachment to the shaggy, black dog that had spent all afternoon with her.

Looking into his big dark eyes, she had to laugh at herself. "I swear," she said, "This dog reminds me of someone."

James laughed heartily and dragged Lily grudgingly off, promising that they would return to visit with the eccentric dog lover and her raucous pooches on the next Hogsmeade trip. The two of them were the last students to cross into Hogwarts grounds before the gates were closed.

Mary gave a little shriek as something cold and wet landed in her lap the next morning at breakfast. She looked up from her bowl of porridge and followed the trail of orange liquid with her eyes to the overturned goblet across the table from her.

"Lily!" she shouted in dismay, feeling cold and sticky. Her friend didn't even move. Lily's hand was still poised midway to her mouth, as though it still held the goblet of pumpkin juice which has soiled the table between them and Mary's favorite pair of jeans. She was focusing on something she was reading in the _Daily Prophet_ with wide, mesmerized eyes. She slowly moved her hand to cover her mouth, her eyes darting back and forth across the page with fury.

Marlene looked between the dismayed Mary and the unfocused Lily and sighed. Waving her wand she said "evanesco," and the mess quickly righted itself.

"Lily? What's up?" Dorcas asked her best friend, trying to peer over the girl's shoulder to read the newspaper.

They were all distracted by Sirius down the table shouting colorful words as he too peered over James' shoulder reading the _Prophet. _He leapt to his feet and stormed out of the dining hall quickly, a trail of murmured whispers followed him and his friends out the door.

Lily jumped up as well, startling her friends, and tucked the paper into her satchel. "I'll catch you up later." She shouted to her friends before streaking out of the great hall in a hurry.

Mary sighed and poured herself a goblet of pumpkin juice. "Is it just me, or are we missing something?" she asked her group at large. All of the girls sighed in response and resumed their morning meals all secretly wondering when they'd become so disconnected with Lily Evans.


	6. Chapter 6

**Story: Facing Fear**

**Summary: **The war is on the horizon and Lily has had her side chosen for her, but with so much tragedy surrounding her young life and all her ambitions, can she pull through stronger than before or will this war will break apart everything she's ever known?

**A/N: **And a second update because I'm in such a good mood.

**Chapter Six: Consequences**

"_I hate war for its consequences, for the lies it lives on and propagates, for the undying hatreds it arouses, for the dictatorships it puts in the place of democracies, _ _and for the starvation that stalks after it."_ _~Harry Emerson Fosdick_

_*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*_

MURDER IN HOGSMEADE

The brutally battered body of 20 year old, muggle-born Nathalie Parks was found last night in her flat by her employer and friend, Thaddeus Zonkoronski, owner of Zonko's Joke Shop.

Zonkoronski said he had decided to inspect Parks apartment when she did not return from her lunch break yesterday afternoon.

"It's just so unlike Nathalie to be late," Zonkoronski said. "She's an excellent employee, practically a member of the family."

Parks was renting the residence, a remodeled stock room above Zonko's Joke Shop, from the Zonkoronski family whom she has been employed by for several years.

Parks, a reportedly outspoken and well-liked young woman, was found dead and alone in her apartment by Zonkoronski who was given a spare key by Parks a year ago.

While officials from the MLE squad are reluctant to provide details, one official did say they suspected foul play.

"Unfortunately there are very few leads to go on at this time," said a spokesperson for the Auror Office. _(ctd. Page 2, column 3)_

"Sirius!" Lily shouted, feeling tired and out of breath. She'd been chasing after the group of seventh year Gryffindor boys for what felt like ages as Sirius stormed furiously and quickly towards the castle gates, his friends trailing behind him and alternately trying to stop his progress. "Sirius stop!" she shouted again. He didn't, but he did at least slow down enough for her to catch up.

Moving past his friends she stood in front of him, forcing him to face her, then placed her hands on his shoulders and met his eyes. "Please don't do anything stupid." She said softly.

He shrugged her hands off of him and tried to push past her. "You don't know what's going on here, Evans. Stay out of it."

"I'm sorry, Sirius." She sighed to his back. "Really. She was a lovely girl. I was glad to have met her."

He stopped moving and turned to face her and she saw something she'd never seen in his eyes before: vulnerability.

"This is so wrong." He said softly, barely moving his lips. He hung his head, for a moment placated. Then suddenly he was fierce and hard again and his eyes flamed angry. "That's why I'm—"

"You're what?" Lily asked angrily. "You're going to do something stupid and reckless? You're going to get yourself killed? You don't even know who to go after, Sirius!" she said.

"I know a good place to start!" he shouted back. He turned on his heel, headed once again for the castle gates.

"Don't be an idiot, Sirius Black!" Lily screamed chasing after him. Once again she gained the head-way and stood before him, panting. For a moment they faced off before Lily had enough. She reached out and slapped him across the cheek hard, leaving a red hand print and a throb in her right hand. "Going and getting yourself killed or expelled or imprisoned won't bring her back!" she told him. "Furthermore, your friends," she waved at the other, long forgotten Marauders, "will follow you into destruction. Would you really risk their lives for your revenge? Would it make any difference?"

Sirius' cold eyes cast around to meet each of his friends' and he seemed to collapse from the inside out. Lily moved towards him slowly and wrapped her arms around his shoulders, pulling his head to rest on her shoulder.

After a minute she felt his tears soak through her cloak and felt her own tears threaten at the corners of her eyes. It took him less than five minutes to compose himself again and he pulled away suddenly and sharply, refusing to make eye contact. "I'm sorry—" he began, but Lily cut him off with the shake of her head.

"There's nobody here who needs an apology, Sirius." She told him.

He nodded. "I think I'll go for a fly around the pitch." He said and without another word turned in that direction.

Lily, feeling drained, watched him walk away for several moments before she turned to the remaining Marauders. "Remus, Peter, follow him. Make sure he doesn't do anything reckless." They nodded.

"Where will you two go?" Peter asked of her and James.

Lily met James' eyes full of purpose. "We're going to talk to Dumbledore."

_*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*_

She and James were silent all the way up to Dumbledore's office where she burst through the door after knocking briefly. "Professor, I'm sorry to interrupt." She said quickly, "But we really must talk with you." Behind his desk, Dumbledore's eyes were curious as Lily cast the newspaper she'd had in her satchel onto his desk. "I assume you've read this already." She said.

His eyes looked deep and very tired when he nodded and picked the article up sighing.

"Sir," Lily sighed in turn, leaning forward onto his desk. "There were over a hundred students in Hogsmeade yesterday! Ten of them were muggle-born. Those students need to be watched more carefully."

Dumbledore nodded and indicated that Lily take a seat. "What are you proposing Miss Evans?" he asked.

She stepped back and sat in a comfy arm chair before his desk and cast a quick glance around the room while she collected her thoughts. The office seemed warm despite the cold, stone walls. There was a merry fire in the grate and an army of portraits behind the Headmaster's head. His desk was piled high with an array of parchment and odd looking magical instruments were all over the room. An empty bird perch sat to her right.

James gave the room only a brief glance as he took the seat beside her and she supposed that he'd spent enough time in it not to be mesmerized like she was. He sat in his chair with a straight, stiff back and tense, uneasy eyes.

"I think we need to postpone Hogsmeade trips. Indefinitely. The students are still safe in these walls." Lily said finally, grimacing at her own suggestion.

"They won't like it." James sighed, not argumentative but mater-of-fact.

"No. I know they won't." Lily nodded. "But our job is to protect them, not give them what they want."

"And there lies the reason why I've chosen you for your position, Miss Evans." Dumbledore nodded, a proud twinkle in his eyes. "However, as there are no leads to this tragedy, I think we'll not lock down on our students just yet." As Lily opened her mouth to protest he held his hand up and she silenced. "We don't want to cause a panic just yet and I fear it will be very hard to convince the school governors to vote as such without more expedient circumstances. I will, of course, be announcing this," he lifted the paper to indicate the article, "at dinner and I urge the two of you to inform the prefects."

"Sir?" James asked suddenly. "Are they really safe here? Can we protect them from what's coming? Pretty soon there won't be a halfblood or muggle-born left. They're starting a war."

"It's not a war, James." Lily said softly and sadly, "Its genocide and it's disgusting." She shivered a little in the warm, inviting office and faced Dumbledore. "What can we do as Heads to help? What can _I _do to help keep them safe?"

Something odd glimmered in Dumbledore's eyes and he gave her the first smile she'd seen from him in days she realized. "For now Miss Evans, all I ask is that you remain aware of the dire situation outside of these walls. At this time, no harm can reach our students here."

Lily nodded and she and James stood up at the obvious dismissal and left the office in silence. When the great, spinning staircase stopped moving James and Lily stepped off into a silent, abandoned hallway. A glance at her watch told her it was lunch time. The knowledge that nothing had changed in the castle felt strange when Lily felt like so much had changed in her life.

She faced James feeling exhausted and he smiled at her sadly. "I want to thank you." he said suddenly. "For what you did with Sirius. It was incredible."

She nodded and felt a quiver in her lips as she did. Her resolve broke suddenly and unexpectedly. It was like a switch had suddenly been turned on. She felt tears prickling at the corner of her eyes and she bit her lip, but already felt a sob building in her throat. Quickly, Lily buried her face in her hands to block her tears from view but her body shook with silent sobbing.

She felt so lost. In an instant, she and everyone she'd ever met had become a target for a greater, destructive force. "I'm scared." She cried quietly.

For a moment, James froze like a frightened prey animal. Haltingly, afraid of her reaction, he very cautiously wrapped his arms around her and pulled her into his chest where her tears immediately began to form a wet spot on his shirt. She looked up into his eyes and even with tears to blur them, he thought her eyes were the most perfect and alluring shade of green he'd ever seen.

"It could have been me," Lily said brokenly into the silent corridor. "That could have been me."

She had no way of knowing that such a simple phrase made something dark and feral lash out in James' gut. A brick of ice settled in his stomach and reached an icy hand up to grip his heart. In an instant it both stopped pounding and then began to beat at double time.

Even while a piece of his mind had known that Nathalie was attacked for being what Lily was, muggle-born, it had never occurred to him how easily he could have lost her.

Of course it could have been her. Nathalie had pronounced Lily's parentage in the same breath as her own. Of course it could have been her splattered across the front page and brutally, thoughtlessly murdered in her own home. He thought he might be sick.

Lily had no way of knowing as she sobbed quietly into his arms and felt the comfort of his warmth that James Potter was making a silent vow to protect her, even if he was never able to call her his own.

It didn't take long for her to wear herself out. Eventually the stress of the morning and the anguished tears wore her down to nothing and suddenly she shut her eyes and could not open them back up. Her legs turned to jelly and James at once felt the change in weight. He picked her up deftly, princess style and carried her up to the Head's common room.

Neither of them, Lily being unconscious and James being completely focused on her, noticed the skulking figure in the shadows who'd watched the whole scene before turning in a different direction, towards the dungeons.

When James stepped through the portrait hole to the Head's common room he was surprised to find Remus, Peter and Sirius seated on the couch waiting for him.

The midday sun peeked brightly through the windows, reminding him that, while it felt like an age had passed, it had only been a few hours since he'd first picked up the Daily Prophet and started this runaway train of emotions. His friend's leapt to their feet at the sight of Lily's lifeless body in his arms. James shook his head to gain their silence and moved quickly across the common room to Lily's bedroom, lying her in her bed carefully.

Her red hair spilled across her white pillowcase like blood in the snow. He brushed a lock back from her eyes and she didn't move. Looking up, he found his friends standing in the doorway curious and worried. He nodded to them and left her room, pulling the door behind him.

"What happened?" Remus asked quietly as soon as the latch clicked in place.

James sighed. "She started crying." he said. "Then she passed out. She's exhausted."

Sirius' face hardened. "Why was she crying? What's wrong?" Had the situation been different, James would've felt heartened to see his friends rallying around the girl he loved when, not too long ago, they'd told him to forget about her and write her off.

"She's scared, Padfoot. It could've so easily been her in the paper this morning."

The looks that crossed his friends' faces alerted him that while all of them were aware of Lily's parentage, it hadn't occurred to them the danger she was in either.

"No." Sirius said, shaking his head. "No. We just won't let it."

James sighed and rested a hand on Sirius shoulder. "Padfoot—"

"No Prongs!" Sirius said. His eyes grew dark and hard again. "They've already taken Nat, we can't let it happen to Lily!"

"We won't." Peter said softly. He met James eyes full of a strength that he rarely displayed. Remus nodded his agreement. James didn't need to say anything to that.

_*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*_

Lily woke up disoriented in her own room trying to remember how she got there. The last thing she remembered was breaking down in James' arms in the corridor in front of Dumbledore's office. That had been around lunch time. A glance outside told her that it was already dusk.

Lily rolled onto her back and folded her hands on top of her chest like a corpse and for a moment she allowed herself to think about what it would be like to die.

She wondered if Dorcas would cry or be beyond tears. Lily had never seen her best friend cry before. She wondered who would explain everything to her parents. She wondered what Petunia would do when she realized that the magic in Lily that she feared so much had led to her sister's death. And, almost belatedly, she wondered what James would do if she were to die in what was surely becoming a war.

Then she bit her lip and scolded herself for such ridiculous thoughts. What right did she have to play pretend when real people had already lost their lives?

_Don't be such a martyr, Lily._

She sat up and opened her door to find Sirius, sitting on the sofa looking for all the world like he belonged there.

"What are you doing here?" she asked.

He smiled at her sadly. "Everyone's gone to dinner. I volunteered to stay and make sure someone was here when you woke up. I wasn't hungry anyway."

Lily sighed and nodded her understanding. She didn't feel much like eating either. Instead she joined Sirius on the sofa, folding her legs beneath her and leaning into his side. It was strange how she felt so comfortable with him when only a few months ago she'd sworn she couldn't be around him. Sirius seemed somehow demure now, saddened by the events of the day.

Lily sighed and leaned her head against his shoulder. "She really meant a lot to you, didn't she?" she asked quietly. She felt his chin bob against her head as he nodded. "I wish I'd known her better."

Sirius laughed. "She was a lot like you actually." He told her. "Stubborn and brilliant, but so defiant. She wasn't brash, but when she believed in something nothing could break her resolve." Lily nodded and they were silent again. Then Sirius asked, "How are you doing? Are you okay?"

Lily shook her head, tired of putting up fronts. "I'm scared. I don't know how to fight this. How do you stop something like this, Sirius?"

"The same way that Nat did," he told her. "Defiance. Don't let them win."

She nodded.

_Don't be afraid. _

_*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*_

"Miss Evans?" McGongall's voice cut into her thoughts belatedly. She jumped a little in her seat and pulled her gaze away from the intricately lined pattern in the maroon rug on the stone floor below her chair.

"Yes?" She asked, hoping she hadn't missed much.

McGonagall sighed and shook the pamphlet in her hand which was stretched across her desk. Lily accepted it sheepishly and wondered how long McGonagall had been waiting for her to accept that piece of parchment.

She looked at the folded brochure in her hands and read the cover, "The Medi-Witch in You." Sighing, she worried her lower lip between her teeth.

McGonagall sighed too. "Ms. Evans, I believe it was _you_ who asked for this meeting. If you're only going to waste my time—"

"I'm sorry, Professor." Lily tucked a strand of hair back and grimaced at the surly look on her favorite professor's face. The strict woman didn't look at all pleased. "I'm just getting cold feet, I suppose."

"Miss Evans, when we met about your career possibilities last year, you were adamantly interested in becoming a Medi-Witch. As I recall, you wouldn't even hear of other options."

Lily nodded. "I know."

_But things are different now._

She met McGonagall's eyes and for the first time noticed all the lines around her face. She wondered when McGonagall had become so aged. It was as if it had happened over night. "I'm just starting to wonder if it will be enough." She shrugged.

"Enough for what, Miss Evans?"

"To save the world?" Lily said, the words slipping out before she could pull them back and come up with another, less ridiculous answer.

McGongall's green eyes softened suddenly, her mouth simultaneously dropping and lifting into a smile. It looked a bit like a grimace. "Ms. Evans, it's not your job to save the world."

_It has to be somebody's. _

"I just want to help. I want to make a difference. I want to catch bad guys or…I don't know, do _something_." She fidgeted in her seat, feeling agitated. The feeling of standing still and waiting had been wearing on her for weeks. She'd almost completely lost the ability to focus in class. She was hardly eating or sleeping. She just couldn't shut her eyes without thinking about Nathalie and all that she'd lost at such a young age. It had been two weeks of startling, pulse racing nightmares before she'd realized what it would take to quell them. She had to do something, feel productive. It was the only way to stop the fear in her.

"I want to be an auror." She told McGonagall.

The woman looked up in shock. "Miss Evans, noble as that is, it's a big decision. The state of this world won't last forever. It's not something to base your life on."

"With all due respect, Professor, if _someone_ doesn't do _something_ then there will be no Wizarding World left to make decisions in at all. I want to help. This is the only way I know how."

McGonagall nodded sadly and after a pause retrieved another pamphlet to hand to Lily. "Lily, I think you'll make a fine auror."

She left the office an hour later with the pamphlet tucked carefully into the inside pocket of her cloak, a little piece of her own defiance.


	7. Chapter 7

**Story: Facing Fear**

**Summary: **The war is on the horizon and Lily has had her side chosen for her, but with so much tragedy surrounding her young life and all her ambitions, can she pull through stronger than before or will this war will break apart everything she's ever known?

**A/N: WARNING! The following chapter is rated M for some very adult content and sexual situations towards the end. Consider yourself warned.**

**Chapter Seven: Lost Innocence**

"_The pain comes from knowing that we have never been safe, and therefore will never be safe again. It comes from knowing we can never be so ignorant again. It comes from knowing we can never be children again. Losing innocence. Remembering heaven. _

_That was the essence of hell." _

_~ John Jakes_

Lily,

I'm afraid that I write with bad news. Your grandmother will not be with us much longer. Please make the arrangements to come home, at least for a few days. She'd love to see you.

Love Always,

Mum

Lily felt her stomach lurch at the sudden ceasing of movement as the spiraling staircase took her away from Dumbledore's office. She's showed the letter to her friends that morning at breakfast and had made her way to Dumbledore's office just after her classes had finished with their hugs and well wishes. Granny Rose, the one stable person in her life, would soon be gone and all of Lily's magical training would not change things. Worse still, it had taken a family tragedy to force her parents into contacting her.

She moved away from the staircase and leaned against the opposing wall, watching the stone gargoyle that guarded the entrance to the Headmaster's office move back into its position.

She pressed her head back against the cool stone behind her and wished that it would just absorb her and spirit her away from her problems. This wasn't right. It wasn't fair. She couldn't handle anything else.

_Isn't it enough that you've taken my innocence?_

_Isn't enough that my family hate me?_

_Isn't it enough that I've changed my plans for my life to help people?_

_When will it be enough?_

She screamed wordlessly in frustration, pulling at her hair. Then she took up her wand and aimed at the spot on the wall across from her, "Reducto!" she shrieked. She watched with little satisfaction as a fist-sized indentation was pounded into the stone. She'd already lined up her next target.

"Reducto, reducto, reducto!" A series of crashes resounded around her as bits of stone dusted the floor.

"Feeling better?"

Lily stopped immediately, feeling a little foolish. This was not how the Head Girl should be behaving. She turned sheepishly to meet the eyes of her witness and breathed a small smile of relief to see Sirius. He was in his school robes still, his shirt quite wrinkled and untucked and his tie hanging undone around his neck. She wondered if all the Marauders felt the need to look disheveled.

"No," she answered honestly, brushing her frizzed hair out of her eyes. "Not a damn bit better." Her voice hitched and she felt tears surge forward, surprised by how much angrier they made her. Sirius waved his wand at the destruction she'd caused and she watched the walls magically repair themselves. "Thanks," she said quietly.

"What's up?" Sirius asked.

Lily shook her head.

He moved to her side, wrapping an arm around her shoulder like a brother might and started leading her down the hall towards the Head's tower. She unconsciously leaned into his side, yearning for comfort.

"It's a week until Christmas break and I just found out my grandmother is dying." She couldn't believe how freely the words fell. Lily could remember being seven years old when her dog got sick and they'd taken him to be put down. She'd barely been able to cope.

'He's not dying, he's just tired!' she'd yelled at her mother for hours and refused food and sleep. Now she realized how very old she was becoming. Death, she thought, was a big word to be okay with at seventeen.

"It's sad isn't it?" she sighed. "That we live in a time when I can be happy that my grandmother is dying of old age because at least she's made it to that point."

_Sometimes I wonder if I will._

"I'm sorry, Lilybean." Sirius whispered softly. He pulled her into an embrace and she allowed him to rub her back for a moment, marveling at how close the two of them had become in such a short time. They were like damaged souls, drawn to each other's darkness. "It'll be okay."

She gave him a watery, bitter laugh. "No, it won't." she told him. "But thanks for saying it anyway." She gripped his forearms bracingly before stepping out of his reach and turning down the hall silently, headed for her own common room and a big bed that she could cry in alone. Tomorrow she would go home and face her family.

As she entered her common room she thought she heard James voice from his bedroom, "Okay. Thanks." Quickly she made a decision and changed directions. He was stashing something into the trunk at the foot of his bed when she reached his bedroom door, leaning against the frame.

"Hey." She said softly, hoping for a distraction. Inside her head was a cacophony of screaming, frightened voices, all her own but different.

"Er…hi." James responded, closing his trunk carefully.

For a moment he didn't move or speak and Lily fought the urge to clap her hands over her ears to keep out the screaming. It was as if all of her fears had taken on voices, shouting them out at her as if she might forget.

_How will I get through this?_

_How can this be happening?_

_Not Granny Rose!_

All of the thoughts seemed to clamor for the top priority, leaving Lily exhausted and confused.

"My grandmother is dying," she told James in a dead hollow voice that didn't feel like her own. She wasn't sure why she'd said it, but she took a second to realize again how easy it was to say, as if she'd already accepted the inevitable.

James nodded like he'd already known and Lily was sure, without a shred of her usual curiosity as to how, that Sirius had already told him. She watched like a viewer outside of her own body as James pushed himself up to his feet and crossed the room to stand in front of her.

_Help me!_

_Make it all go away!_

"When did the world get so dark?" she asked him.

He lifted her chin with a finger, forcing her to meet his gaze, and she felt his breath warm on her cheek, the contact quieting the screaming voices in her head for a moment. She wondered what it would take to silence them permanently and what it must be like to not be afraid all the time.

The feel of his breath and the hand he'd now rested on her shoulder drew her away from her worries for a moment.

_This is what it takes?_

The question was both incredulous and curious, but she was desperate for some solitude from her own mind.

As though she were someone else, she felt and saw herself lean forward into his embrace, tilting her head up to meet his. The screaming, pounding fear in her mind grew instantly silent as she pushed herself onto her tiptoes and let her lips crash onto his.

For a moment she felt his muscles tense and then he relaxed and she pulled away. Already she regretted the action. There was something strange in his eyes that she couldn't name and her breathing felt heavy and erratic as she asked herself what she had just done.

James' eyes were smoldering and she felt like a living flame as his gaze stayed trained on her. Heat rose to her cheeks and she didn't know what to say. The screaming was back now, louder than before as though they were insulted by her attempts to quiet them.

_Just shut up, all of you!_

Without thinking she wrapped her arms around James' neck and pulled him down to meet her lips again, tearing at him hungrily. This time there was no hesitation in his response and as she slid her tongue hungrily into his mouth his met hers and battled for dominance.

_Stop! Lily, stop! _

The other voices had faded away now, only her own desperate voice seemed to ring in her ears, but she didn't pull away. The voices would be there waiting for her, she knew, but this moment could be hers.

She let her hands slide down from around his neck to grip the front of his shirt and pull him against her. Her back pressed painfully against the corner of the doorframe but she didn't stop and she didn't push him away as he moved his hands beneath her blouse and ran them along her cool skin.

She pulled back only long enough to meet his eyes, something silent and confusing written there. She ignored it, her fingers deftly going to his shirt, undoing each button hastily and hungrily.

When he stood before her without his shirt, his chiseled, toned chest making heat rise to her cheeks, he pulled just out of her reach.

"Lily, are you sure?" he asked, his voice saying clearly that he wasn't sure if he could hold back.

_No!_

"Yes." She nodded. To emphasize her point she began unbuttoning her blouse, revealing a pink, lacy bra. She was oddly glad that she'd put on cute underwear that morning.

The look in James' eyes made her body feel hot all over and before she could blink, they both stood before each other naked. At first she felt shy; she'd never been in front of a boy naked before. Instantly she moved to cover her breasts, but James caught her hands in the motion and brought them to his lips, kissing them gently.

"You're beautiful." He told her, his voice husky with emotion and desire. Lily felt her entire body blush at the statement. She took just a moment to look him up and down, drawn to his powerful muscles and rather impressive erection.

When he lifted her up and carried her to his bed she made no protest. The desire in her was too great now for turning back. He quickly grabbed his wand and cast a contraception charm before tossing it over his shoulder and climbing on top of her.

For a moment they teased a touched and explored. The sweat and the panting gave Lily a heady, dizzy feeling. Then, he was above her, his erection teasing her entrance and she gasped as he pushed forward. He paused at the sound, concern in his eyes, but she urged him on in desperation.

_Lily, what are you doing?_

Later that night, once the two of them had run their course, James had rolled over and snuggled up against Lily's back, one arm draped over her side. She'd stayed up most of the night, staring into the darkness and trying to ignore the worries which had returned just after they had climaxed. It had been perfect and that's what scared her.

When James woke the next morning it was to find her side of the bed empty and Lily already off to the muggle world to deal with her family.


	8. Chapter 8

**Story: Facing Fear**

**Summary: **The war is on the horizon and Lily has had her side chosen for her, but with so much tragedy surrounding her young life and all her ambitions, can she pull through stronger than before or will this war will break apart everything she's ever known?

**Chapter Eight: Saying Goodbye**

_Saying goodbye, like saying I'm sorry, always seems like it isn't enough when you finally get up the nerve to say it._

_~Anonymous_

"Your sister isn't coming," her mother said in a terse voice, barely reigning in her emotion.

Lily nodded. Of course Petunia wasn't coming. She'd left the family. She'd exiled herself, chosen a life where her sister wasn't a freak. She'd left to spend the rest of her life with a man who made her feel like she was the most important thing in the world.

"What will you tell Granny Rose?" Lily asked. Her mother shrugged, holding back a sob. Lily sighed, understanding the unasked favor. She got up from her seat, "I'll do it." She nodded.

Her mother didn't say anything else, she just sat down at the kitchen table, taking the seat Lily had just risen from and stared at the bit of stationary in her hands. Lily didn't even want to see the hurtful things her sister could've written.

The house was horribly silent and nothing like she remembered it. It was like someone had stripped her childhood home and tried to fill it with actors. Everything looked right, but it was somehow all wrong.

Lily and her father hadn't spoken since her first night back. He moved around the house like an angry, dangerous gargoyle. She was still waiting for him to explode and shout, but so far his stony silence felt much worse.

Her mother on the other hand, coped in the completely opposite way. She put all of her focus into helping Granny Rose feel better and seemed to have forgotten all about the horrible events of September 1 which had cost her both of her daughters in one way or another. Sometimes it felt like Lily wasn't even in the house at all.

Lily sighed and pushed open the bedroom door, peeking her head in slowly. "Granny Rose?" she said, "Are you awake?"

"Come in, dear."

She smiled a little and entered the room. Her grandmother looked every bit like a wilting flower from her own garden. She'd lost a lot of weight since Lily was last home and her skin had taken on the texture of yellowed parchment. The wrinkles around her eyes had never looked so pronounced.

Lily's mother had begged for Granny Rose to stay at the hospital where they had the means to care for her, but the old woman had stoutly refused.

"If I'm to die, I'd like to at least be in a comfortable bed when I do so." She'd told her daughter and the doctors firmly.

"How are you feeling today?" Lily asked. She eased into the chair near Granny Rose's bed and took the older woman's hand.

Granny Rose grinned, "Like a spring chicken." She coughed and Lily held back her tears the best she could. "When are you going back to school, dear?"

Lily shrugged. She'd been home just over a week. "Christmas break had already begun," she explained, eyeing her grandmother sadly. Granny Rose had seemed to wilt a little more each day. She thought it unlikely that her grandmother would make it past the holiday.

"Stop agonizing over the dead, Lily." Her grandmother said. The words cut deeper than she could know. Or perhaps, Lily thought, she did know. Granny Rose was quite perceptive. "When the time comes for me to go, I will. All the tears and fretting in the world won't change it. You can worry it all over in your head, but at the end of the day, you'll find nothing has changed and really, it doesn't matter much."

"Why must everyone die?" Lily asked quietly. It was something that had been wearing away at her each night. Death. He had his grasp on everybody. He stood at each doorway, only waiting patiently to get his foot in. And there was no stopping him.

"Death is not a punishment or an ailment to cure, Lily. It's simply the step after life. And I have lived a full life. I'm not afraid. Don't be afraid for me." Lily nodded and watched Granny Rose's eyes begin to droop. "You're sister isn't coming is she?" she asked so quietly that Lily nearly missed it.

She shook her head. "I'm sorry."

Granny Rose chuckled and then was taken by a fit of coughs. "No matter now. It won't be long." Then she fell asleep.

Lily watched her grandmother's chest rise and fall like a tide along the coast, slow and steady and beautiful. She stayed until she could hardly hold back her sobs and then she left the room silently.

They buried Granny Rose on December 23. Lily knew that it was going to be a hard Christmas for her family. Petunia was gone, Granny Rose was gone, and Lily, she just felt lost and exhausted. Her parents knew that they were losing her too.

When they returned home it was to a darker, unfamiliar house. They sat in the living room quietly sipping on mugs of tea and Lily suddenly knew that this was it. She sighed, set her cup on the end table beside her and faced her parents.

"I've not been honest with you." She said quickly before she could allow herself to back out.

Her parents both looked up in alternate states of shock. Her mother looked unwilling to care about anything anymore; her father seemed validated in his silent treatment of her. "About what?" he asked his youngest daughter coldly. An image popped into Lily's head of a time that felt so much longer than ten years ago when he used to carry her around the house on his shoulders humming 'God Save the Queen.'

Lily blinked away the image. "About the magical world." She sighed. She knew that they didn't understand and wondered if it was even possible to make them see. "We're at war, or will be soon. People are already dying." She sighed. She wasn't sure why she started that way. She knew they would be frightened but she was so beyond fear now that she couldn't think of any other way to explain it.

"What?" Her mother gasped her first words since the funeral.

Lily nodded, sighed and tried to start again. "See, some people believe that there are only certain children who should be allowed to learn magic and those are the people who were born and bred into it. They call themselves pure-bloods. They hate muggle-born witches and wizards. They resent us for our differences."

"Why?"

Lily shrugged, "Why does anybody hate anybody else? I suppose it all has to do with fear. Anyway, the thing is, this has been going on for ages. Only, about two years ago this wizard decided that he was going to do something about it. He's trying to start a war to kill the muggle-borns."

Her mother gasped again. Her father looked rigid. "Surely this isn't affecting you at that school though."

Lily grimaced. "Hogwarts, Dad, and of course it is. The students at Hogwarts aren't blind, deaf and dumb. We know what's going on in the world. Besides, it's my last year. Next year I'll be out in the world dealing with this, living with it."

She watched his eyes go cold. "You're not going back." Her father said. She'd feared those words for longer than she could remember. She'd somehow always expected them to come but pretended that it wouldn't. It confirmed what she'd long known. They didn't understand her.

"Yes, Daddy, I am." She was a little surprised when the world didn't burst into flames at her defiance. Her father's face grew red with anger and she could see a vein on his forehead pound with ferocity.

"Lily, you are _still_ my daughter and we are taking you out of that school! You can home school, you'll catch up quickly enough. In a year or two you can start University and just leave all that nonsense behind."

"_No_, Daddy."

Deflated a little by her defiance, her father's next words were much quieter but just as angry. "How could you not tell us about all of this, Lily?" He asked. The hardness in his voice made her shiver. He'd never looked at her with that kind of rage.

"I was trying to protect you," She said.

_To protect all of us.  
_"Protect us from what, Lily? From loosing you?"

"NO!" she screamed, finally reaching her boiling point.

_It's all been for you!_

"I've been trying to protect you from _knowing_ that you've lost me!" The words spilled out without her being able to control it. Even as she said them she slapped a hand over her mouth. It was too late to keep them in though. Lily shut her eyes and felt a hot tear roll down one cheek. "Don't you understand?" she asked quietly, knowing already the answer to her question.

_No._

_I suppose you can't. _

"Understand what?"

"This is what I am. Being a witch isn't a temporary thing. This is my life now. When I leave Hogwarts I'm not coming home to go to University. I'll get a job _there_. I'll probably marry a wizard. My children will most likely go to Hogwarts." Lily felt her voice quivering and she swallowed past a lump in her throat. "Every step I take towards that life is a step _away_ from you and everything I've ever known. I have to give up all of it to be who I was born to be."

She would always love her parents, she would always want them in her life, but she understood now that there were things she'd just never be able to tell them. There were things she'd never be able to explain. In the deep recesses of her mind she knew that she'd long expected this moment to come when she'd have to look her parents in the eye and accept that there was nothing left between her and the life that she'd once known.

Lily took a deep, shuddering breath and sighed, "I want you two to be a part of my life." She lifted her hand to twist a lock of her hair around her finger and braced herself for her next words, "but all my love won't keep you safe."

"Then come home!"

"I can't." She cried. "There is adversity in my world and it _is_ hard and unfair and _dangerous, _but it's _my_ world and I won't leave it. I belong there. Don't you see? This isn't your fight, but it _is_ mine. I _have _to stay," she bit her lip and wished that some kind bit of the universe would swallow her and spare her having to say her next words, "but you two _can't_."

"So you'll choose them," her father said coldly, "over your family."

"No," Lily shook her head. "I won't be forced to choose between who I am and who I love. You shouldn't even ask it of me. But I _will_ keep you safe, at all costs. I'm sorry." She hung her head to hide her tears and hoped solemnly that they wouldn't put up any more fight. She wasn't sure she could refuse them any further. Already guilt and regret bubbled in her stomach like something cold and rotten.

It took only a minute for her mother's soft sobs to reach Lily's ears. She squeezed her eyes shut tighter and tried not to let her own tears slip away and betray her lack of faith in her own decision.

She waited only a moment before retrieving her trunk. A hand of the front door knob reminded her of her tragic send-off back in September, where this had all started.

_Goodbye._

_I love you._

"I'm sorry." She whispered to her parents, still seated in the living room. Opening the door she stepped out silently. "Obliviate," she muttered, erasing the painful memories of their youngest daughter.

As she closed the door behind her a deep ache rumbled in the pit of her stomach and she bit her lip hard to reign in her emotions. She tasted iron in her mouth as she pulled hard enough on her lip to rip skin loose and make it bleed. She did not sob though. She bore her grief silently and wondered if there was anything left for this war to take from her.


	9. Chapter 9

**Story: Facing Fear**

**Summary: **The war is on the horizon and Lily has had her side chosen for her, but with so much tragedy surrounding her young life and all her ambitions, can she pull through stronger than before or will this war will break apart everything she's ever known?

**A/N: Thank you, thank you, thank you to all of my reviewers. You guys give me hope that someone out there is reading! Hope you like this one, it's pretty slow moving. As I side note, or maybe not, I saw the newest movie and wasn't really impressed. I think it's giving me writer's block. ******

**Chapter Nine: A Little Bit of Comfort**

"_My feeling is that there is nothing in life but refraining from hurting others and comforting those who are sad."_

_~Olive Schreiner_

Lily woke up and stretched in the large, warm bed that she and Dorcas had shared the night before. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes and forced her lashes apart, squinting at the blinding sun pouring in through the window.

On the end table by the bed she found a folded piece of parchment with her name on it and opened it curiously.

**Good morning Sleeping Beauty,**

**You were out cold so I thought I'd just leave you alone. Mum, Dad and I went last minute shopping. Enjoy your lie in. **

**Love ya!**

**Dorcas**

Lily smiled a little. Christmas shopping was something that Lily had finished before she'd even left Hogwarts. She knew though that Dorcas, as a last minute shopper—after all it was Christmas Eve—probably still needed to pick up Lily's present among other things.

After leaving her parents' home the night before she'd wandered three blocks before determining that there was only one place she could go.

_Standing on Dorcas' doorstep, she felt sick to her stomach at what she'd just done. Self-loathing didn't get much deeper than this. She kicked her feet about in the snow and blinked back tears when her best friend answered the door._

"_Lily?" Dorcas said surprised._

"_Hi," Lily didn't even know what to say. "I didn't know where else to go." She shrugged. _

_Dorcas opened the door wider to allow her friend in. "What happened?" she asked. Lily shrugged again. "Were you kicked out?" The incredulity in her voice cut like a knife._

_Lily shook her head. "More like a voluntary move to keep the peace." Dorcas' mother came around the corner then to see who was keeping her daughter at the door. _

"_Oh, Lily dear."_

"_Hi, Mrs. Meadowes. Could I stay here just for a bit?"_

"_Of course, dear. As long as you like." She smiled kindly and did her best not to seem too curious._

_It only took about twenty minutes to get all of Lily's belongings put away in Dorcas room. The closet was magically expanded to provide more space and Lily left her school things in her trunk for another time and another worry. When she came out of the closet it was to find Dorcas perched on the edge of her bed looking expectantly at her best friend._

"_What happened, Lils?"_

_Lily sighed and felt the weight of what she'd done collapse upon her. Suddenly crying didn't even seem like enough so she didn't allow her tears to fall. Instead she shrugged. "What we always knew would happen eventually. They asked me not to go back."_

_Dorcas gasped, throwing her hands to her mouth in alarm. "They didn't!"_

_Lily nodded. "It was an explosive fight." She moved across the room to sit on the bed with Dorcas. "I feel so guilty." _

_Dorcas shook her head emphatically. "You mustn't. They made their choice and you made yours. They still love you, Lily and they know you love them." _

"_No," Lily shook her head. "They don't know anything. I've done something awful Dorcas. I…I erased their memories of me."_

"_Lily! That's…"_

_Lily nodded. "I know. I know! It's just that Petunia left in September and now I'm gone. It might kill them. I just didn't want them to worry about it during break. I'll fix it at the end of term."_

"_They're the adults, Lils. They'll take care of themselves." Dorcas nodded her head, agreeing with her own statement and then stood up to signal the end of discussion. "Come on," she said, holding a hand out to pull Lily up, "It's almost supper time and I declare tonight an Ice cream Sundae dinner."_

_Dorcas' mom conjured a cot in Dorcas' room for Lily before going to bed, promising to make more permanent arrangements in the morning. Lily laid in her own bed for only a few moments, feeling the weight of the day finally catching up to her, before she heard her friend's voice carry across the room.. _

"_Come on, Lily." Dorcas whispered softly._

_Without argument she got out of her bed and stumbled the few feet between them. Curling up next to her best friend in the fetal position, Lily finally told Dorcas everything that had happened with her grandmother and her parents._

"_What am I going to do?" she whispered when she'd finished._

"_Whatever you do, I'll be here for you." Dorcas said calmly, rubbing small circles on the redhead's back. _

"_There's something else," Lily said suddenly. Dorcas nodded for her to continue. "I…I slept with James."_

"_WHAT?" Dorcas' whisper was harsh. "You've kept that quiet," she hissed accusingly, grabbing Lily's arm. Lily was secretly grateful for the anchor._

_She shrugged, trying to meet Dorcas' eyes through the darkness. She hadn't slept with James out of some desperate desire. The action had been purely emotional. She'd needed comfort and he had obliged. They weren't dating, it wouldn't be happening again. It had been one perfect moment where two people could come together for each other without any ties. Lily told Dorcas as much._

_She could literally feel Dorcas rolling her eyes. "You two are hopeless. So how does James feel about this arrangement then?"_

_Lily shrugged again, thinking her shoulders might eventually fall off if she continued to do it. "It's not an arrangement. It's something that happened. Maybe it shouldn't have, but it won't be happening again so we haven't really got any reason to discuss it."_

_Dorcas didn't speak for so long that Lily thought she'd fallen asleep, then, "Just be careful, Lily." Dorcas said softly. "You're really vulnerable right now. I don't want to see you get hurt and…I don't want you to hurt James either."_

_She brushed the hair from Lily's forehead in a maternal sort of way that made Lily's heart cry out for her mother. "Goodnight, Lils." She whispered. "Things will look better in the morning." _

Lily sighed again at the memory, wondering if she'd ever feel whole and unbroken again. Her stomach growled, impatiently interrupting her thoughts.

_Well, that's one thing I can fix._

She rolled out of bed, dressing quickly and headed down stairs to hunt for food. Padding into the kitchen in jeans, a light sweater and bare feet—which was probably a bad idea on the cold tile floor, but she didn't know where exactly she'd left her shoes the night before—she determined that standing in front of the ice box didn't sound inviting went in pursuit of a glass of water instead.

Turning to her right she pulled open the cabinet for glasses only to realize she was looking for the glasses where they would be in her parents' home. Her hands shook at the realization and she cupped them over her mouth. Everything inside of Lily wanted to breakdown and shatter, tears suddenly threatened at the corners of her eyes.

_Stop it._

_Just breathe._

She turned to the right, opening the cabinet above the sink where the Meadowes kept their glasses.

_See, you knew that. It's just habit and habits can be broken._

She took a deep breath, willing her hands to stop shaking and then she grabbed the nearest glass. She suddenly felt the need to fill the silence of the empty house with menial tasks. Turning to the sink she found a few plates from breakfast and eyed the glass in her hand which she'd just filled. She began searching for soap.

_If I just do little things one at a time, I'll be okay. I can find the cups, I can find the soap, I can clean the dishes. I don't need parents for any of that. _

"One thing at a time, Lily," She muttered, rummaging under the cabinets with one hand, the glass of water still in the other. Someone knocked on the door and she jumped like a spooked prey animal.

"Geez, Lil, get a grip," she scolded, her hand over her heart as if to hold it in. She set the glass down and made her way to the front door.

At the second knock, Lily was starting to consider not answering. It wasn't like any of the Meadowes' were home anyway, she'd have to take a message, but by the third knock she decided to answer the door and give the person a piece of her mind for being so annoying in her time of crisis.

She flung the door open and instantly deflated. James Potter stood on the doorstep looking quite perplexed. He was wearing a pair of muggle trousers and a thick red sweater under a warm looking leather coat

"Er…Hi." He said, running a hand through his hair and raising his eyebrow curiously.

"Hello." Lily nodded. She wrapped her arms around her middle as the cold seeped through the thin fabric of her jumper and her toes turned to icicles.

"You're barefoot." James said.

"Yeah." She nodded. "Um…Come in." She couldn't exactly stand outside and talk in such an outfit.

Shivering a little, she padded down the hallway towards the living room and the warm fireplace. James followed, taking off his coat and carrying it over one arm. The two of them sat down in opposing chairs and stared at the licking flames of the grate in order to keep from staring at each other.

After several minutes of silence Lily forced herself to turn to him. He kept his gaze on the fire grate and she studied his profile. His cheeks were rosy from the cold and his eyes moved behind his glasses like they longed to stare at her but he wouldn't allow them.

"So," she said slowly, leaving a pause for him to speak up.

_What are you doing here?_

"So how long have you been staying with the Meadowes?" he asked.

Lily sighed. She'd hoped to turn the conversation towards him. "About twelve hours," she answered.

"Did you have a falling out with your parents?"

"You could say that." At his pointed stare she grimaced and felt words tumbling out before she could stop them. "Granny Rose died. I told my parents about the war and everything and then, after they kicked me out, I obliviated myself from their memory. I didn't want to ruin their Christmas." She said it all matter-of-factly, her voice barely wavering, but her eyes betrayed a deep-seeded pain.

"Are you okay?" he asked. "You sort of disappeared after…"

And they had arrived at the heart of the awkwardness stretching between them. She'd known it was coming but bit her lip in hesitation anyway. "Yeah, about that…" She halted, unsure of what to say or how to breach the subject. Dorcas' voice filled her mind. _Just be careful, Lily. One of you is bound to get hurt in an arrangement like that._

"I'm sorry I let it happen." He said suddenly, pulling her from her thoughts. He shifted in his seat and carefully caught her eye.

She nodded, sending him a silent thank-you with her eyes. "It's okay. It…it was my fault, really. I took advantage of, well, the situation. I was just in need of comfort and you were, er…" She stopped speaking, afraid of what else she might say if she kept babbling.

After a long pause Lily looked up and caught his eye again. "So what brings you here? The Meadowes are out at the moment."

"I'd gathered that." He smirked and Lily felt everything shift back into their old routines. "I'm here to deliver a message actually. My mum is having her annual New Year's Eve Ministry Ball. Dorcas' parents come every year. Sometimes she comes too. You'll be invited as well, of course."

"You're mum has a ball? That's really…" _Extravagant._

"Excessive." He supplied.

Lily smiled. "That's not quite what I was going to say," she said softly. Suddenly his smile was gone and her eyes followed him as he got up from his seat and knelt before her.

"You don't have to pretend to be okay with everything that's going on." He told her gently. It occurred to her how well he knew her in that moment. James Potter, the boy she'd started the term hating, seemed to see right through her façade, seemed to see her better than she saw herself. Without another word he leaned into her and his arms slid comfortably around her shoulders, pulling her into a hug.

She tensed for a moment, unwilling to give in, but the familiar scent of him made her feel like melting chocolate and suddenly, though she'd held them at bay all through the previous night, she felt tears well in her eyes and spill over and she found herself silently weeping onto his shoulder. Neither of them spoke as a wet spot formed on his expensive red jumper and he stroked her long red hair gently, letting her get it all out.

"James?" Dorcas' voice pulled Lily from her haze of tears and she jumped away from him guiltily. Dorcas looked suspiciously between the two of them as her parents came up behind her.

"Oh, James," Mr. Meadowes said. "How nice to see you."

"Hi, Mr. Meadowes." James said, casually stepping away from Lily who was busily brushing her tears away.

"Is everything alright?" Dorcas asked.

"Of course." Lily replied, her voice raspy from crying. "James was just bringing this by." She held out the envelope he'd dropped onto his jacket.

"Mum hopes you'll make it again this year." He said to the Meadowes as they opened the envelope, then nodded to Dorcas and Lily, "you two are invited as well, of course." He glanced around the room and then, "Well, I better get going," and he walked out of the house silently.

As the front door clicked shut all of the Meadowes turned to her curiously. "So," Lily said, clapping her hands and hoping to distract them from studying her, "how about lunch?"


	10. Chapter 10

**Story:** After the Breakdown

**Summary: **The war is on the horizon and Lily has had her side chosen for her, but with so much tragedy surrounding her young life and all her ambitions, can she pull through stronger than before or will this war will break apart everything she's ever known?

**Chapter Ten: A Little Charm Work**

_Charm is a way of getting the answer 'yes' without asking a clear question._

_~Albert Camus_

"I'm coming out, don't laugh," she called through the bathroom door. Biting her lip she took a deep breath before turning the knob and stepping into Dorcas' bedroom sheepishly. "How bad is it?"

"Far out! Lily, you look totally rad. How did you turn my horrible sundress into that?"

"It's just a few charms spells." Lily said quietly, looking over herself in the mirror. With nothing appropriate to wear to a ball and unwilling to return to her parents' home in search of something, she'd accepted one of Dorcas' old dresses and decided to conjure up something to wear. Looking in the mirror she had to admit she was impressed. She'd used a few spells to lengthen the hem to just above her ankles, letting the back hang longer in a semi-train. She'd added a slit up to just above her knee and turned the twin straps into a halter tie at the back. Finally, she'd created a low, open back. "What do you think?"

"I think it's perfect, except for the color."

Lily bit her lip, considering the suggestion. Yellow didn't look terrible on her, but Dorcas' was right, it didn't fit either. Holding the tip of her wand to the charmed gown she muttered, "Vicissitu crudus," from its tip a spill of color bled down her thigh and up her side, turning the entire thing the exact shade of emerald to match her eyes. She looked back at the mirror and nodded at her reflection pleased.

"Damn," Dorcas shook her head grinning. "You're amazing sometimes."

"Yeah, watch out world here I come," Lily said sardonically, "I can turn all your old ugly dresses into ball gowns, aren't I amazing?"

"Don't joke," Dorcas scolded with a scowl. "That's really good, Lils."

"Thanks." Lily nodded, trying to accept the compliment gracefully. Dorcas smiled at her best friend and then turned to her closet and revealed her own gown for the occasion. It was a simple A-line dress in deep crimson.

"So, can you fix mine?"

"Why? It looks great."

"Not as great as yours," Dorcas grinned. "Come on, you've got a talent. No reason to waste it."

Lily sighed and pulled her wand out again, feeling like it really wasn't necessary. She bit her lip and then went to work anyway, creating twin slits on either side of Dorcas' knees and putting an illusion on the straps so that the gown appeared strapless. Finally, she grinned at the idea, she created a starburst of tiny jewels from the tip of her wand and draped them delicately from the right side of Dorcas' hip up to the center most point between her breasts.

"Might as well accent the ladies," She told her friend coyly.

"Geez, Lil. You should open a dress shop or something." Dorcas teased.

"Oh shut up." Lily giggled. She watched Dorcas straighten her hair into a perfectly rigid sheet the color of molten chocolate and then turned her wand to her own head and made it curl up in soft ringlets.

"We look pretty hot," Dorcas said, pulling her friend to the floor-length mirror and admiring the two of them.

"Very nice," the mirror agreed.

Lily took her wand and, with no where else to conceal it, twisted it into her hair, using it to pin up her sea of curls.

"Well," Lily sighed, "Let's get this over with then."

The Meadowes had left the day before, having planned a romantic getaway in Paris ("Blech, parents shouldn't have romance," Dorcas had said) and so Lily apparated side-along with Dorcas to the ball. It turned out that the New Year's Eve Ministry Ball was held at The Upper Room, a swanky, expensive and exclusive Wizarding restaurant in downtown London, named because it was an oval-shaped, all-glass room suspended fifteen stories up. The idea of being dangled that high in the air, even magically, made Lily's stomach do funny flips, but she took Dorcas' hand and gave a fake smile following her friend onto the lift.

It brought her to an open terrace, the wind blowing chilly air at her bare shoulders and causing goose bumps. She shivered and wrapped her arms around herself, stepping away from the banister so she wouldn't have to look down.

A wolf whistle drew her attention and she swung around to find Sirius eyeing she and Dorcas like carved meat. "Foxy ladies!" he shouted, causing several arriving guests to stop and stare. Lily felt her face redden and hid her head but Dorcas laughed.

"Like what you see, Black?" she teased.

"Always. Where they hell have you been all my life?" he joked. He stepped towards them and pulled them both into warm hugs.

Dorcas smiled. "Aren't the dresses fab? Lily made them herself."

"Hardly," Lily argued quickly, "its only charm spells. We'll be lucky if they hold to midnight."

"Ooo," Sirius chuckled, "Will they disappear then like that Cinderella chick?" Lily looked at him curiously and Sirius gave her a broad grin. "Muggle studies. We studied fairy tales last year. It's my favorite class see, 'cause it annoyed my parents so much that I was taking it."

"Figures." Dorcas sighed, shaking her head. "Let's get inside, I'm freezing." Dorcas said.

The ballroom was stunning with its enormous clear glass panes putting the guests literally right up into the stars and crisp, white tablecloths and white-covered chairs, Lily felt a bit like swooning at the extravagance. A full brass band was stationed on a mock stage near the buffet tables and a beautiful dark-skinned witch crooned some Celestina Warkbeck as she and Dorcas, escorted by Sirius, crossed the room towards a large table in the far corner where she could see her friends Marlene, Alice and Remus from school and the handsome Frank Longbottom.

"Where's James?" Lily asked as she took the seat Sirius offered her.

Remus and Sirius met eyes across the table and smirked. "Lily, we didn't know you cared?" Sirius asked. Scowling, Lily retrieved a handful of nuts from a bowl on the table and tossed them casually in his direction.

Remus chuckled. "James and his mother got called back home unexpectedly. He didn't say why, but he should be back soon."

"So who's been into the champagne?" Dorcas asked, changing the subject as she motioned towards the fleet of empty champagne flutes along the table.

Marlene raised her hand proudly with a glazed sort of smile. Her long strawberry-blonde hair was pulled back into a ponytail and her curly tendrils fell down her back attractively. She wore a floor-length black gown and simple black shawl and looked every bit like a dark enchantress. "I've been drinking these boys under the table." She stated with a grin motioning towards Remus and Frank.

"Play nice, Marley." Alice said softly. Her own looked mirrored Marlene's. She too wore a floor-length gown but in a cream color. Her blonde hair captured in an elegant twist at the back of her head and her arm looped casually through Frank's.

Dorcas rolled her eyes at her drunk friend and gripped Lily's arm tightly, sighing. "Why are we friends with these people?" She asked in a staged whisper.

"It's part of my charity work." Lily replied, picking up one of the full champagne glasses and sipping slowly, feeling the bubbles rise pleasantly to her head.

"Lily," She turned around and tried not to smile as James Potter came up behind her with a broad grin on his face. His eyes seemed to sparkle as he openly eyed her and his smile, she thought secretly, was breath-taking. "You look amazing," he said.

She laughed. She had to admit to herself that he looked good in his pressed, black dress robes. He'd made some attempt at controlling his hair which had failed but made him all the better looking. His hands were stuffed into his pockets and he rocked back on his heels. "You clean up pretty nicely yourself," she told him quietly.

He nodded, sending her a charming wink, and pulled out a chair to sit down next to her. "Sorry I'm late everyone. Thanks for waiting on me to start the party, Marlene," he added laughing at the girls drunken hiccup.

"What was the hold-up, Prongs?" Sirius asked.

James shrugged casually, "Something about the Ministry getting a tip about an inside attack. Mum is still going over the guest list with them person by person. I had to vouch for all of you so don't go killing anybody." He joked.

"Who'd the tip come from?" Remus asked James curiously.

He shrugged, running a hand through his partially tamed hair so that it stuck up at all ends, "Anonymous."

"It seems pretty unlikely, though, doesn't it? I mean, we're surrounded by ministry officials. Who'd attack all these Aurors in a centrally-located place?" Alice asked.

"It's not as if they haven't made bold moves before, Al." Lily said quietly, chugging the rest of her champagne and reaching for another.

"Granted, but in small steps," Sirius said darkly, "This would be their biggest move yet."

"It still seems unlikely, I mean, there are at least fifty ministry officials and Aurors here with their families, isn't that a bit like tempting fate?" Marlene said.

"Agreed," James nodded, reaching for a glass of champagne and holding it like a toast. "Come one, let's not ruin the party with this sort of talk."

Lily nodded. She was on her third glass of champagne and feeling pleasantly warm listening vaguely to her friends discuss Quidditch and gossip about some of the party guests.

The room spun pleasantly and she pushed all thoughts of attacks from her mind as the clock struck eleven chimes. She felt a hand on her shoulder and turned to find James grinning down at her.

"Dance with me," he said.

Lily sighed. "James--"

He cut her off with a finger to his lips and then pointed to his ear. _Shut up and listen._

Lily cocked her head and a slow smile spread across her face as the smooth, sultry tones of a familiar jazz song filled the room.

"How did you--"

"Me?" he asked innocently. "I've been right beside you the whole time. Now, come on," he tugged on her hand gently, "you wouldn't want to waste the song."  
He pulled her out onto the dance floor and she found herself following easily, comfortably, as the pretty witch began singing, "At last, my love has come along."

As James placed his hand on her waist she rested her arm around his shoulder and they moved into a measured step. She wasn't really surprised that he could dance.

"So, how did you do it?" she asked coyly as he turned them in a slow circle.

"Do what?"

"Don't play dumb," she chided. "Did you put it into the set list or did Sirius carry your sneaky song request to the bandstand?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Sure," she nodded mockingly. "So what's the scam Potter?" she whispered, echoing her words at the beginning of term. "Trying to charm the pants off of me?"

James chuckled softly, "A little charm never hurt anybody. Besides, I'm waiting for your cue to go there again," he said lightly.

Lily cut him a look. "What makes you think we'll be 'going there' _again_?"

"My charm."

"Ha, ha."

He laughed in earnest, delicately sending her spinning away and then back into him. "I'm just waiting for you to make the first move, _again_, as per the rules of our agreement at the beginning of term."

"And then?" Lily giggled in spite of herself, blaming the champagne as James sent her into another spiral. "How can you know what I want when I don't even know what I want?"

James smiled and pulled her back into him, sending her elegantly into a one-armed dip. "I'm willing to wait while you figure it out," he whispered leaning towards her so that he was so near her lips she thought she'd melt with the heat of his mouth. He picked her back up and she felt her feet hit the ground like a reality check. His face was close enough to hers to smell the champagne and, was that peppermint, on his breath.

Lily faltered, afraid of being this close to him ever again. Her thoughts were interrupted as something like the sound of a speeding frisbee drew in on her ears and she turned towards it, confused. James' reacted reflexively, surely born of his years on the Quidditch Pitch, and pushed her away as a jet of green passed between them close enough to stir the loose tendrils of hair in her face. She was too drunk and lost her footing, but James' hands gripped her forearms and pulled her back up to steady legs before she could fall.

Simultaneously they followed the path of the green light as a scream split the air. A crumpled body lay only a few feet away from them, all blonde hair and long, slender legs in a stunning blue gown. A little girl was poised over it, shrieking into the now silent room.

Stunned, Lily turned back towards the direction of the unleashed spell and gasped. In the shocked silence that had followed the solitary curse, a line of black-robed masked men had flanked the front wall, blocking the only entrance and exit into the building.  
Lily grabbed James arm, frightened and suddenly very sober. "James," she whispered softly, her fingers trembling against his skin.


	11. Chapter 11

**Story:** After the Breakdown

**Summary: **The war is on the horizon and Lily has had her side chosen for her, but with so much tragedy surrounding her young life and all her ambitions, can she pull through stronger than before or will this war will break apart everything she's ever known?

**Chapter Eleven: The First Offensive**

_Out of sorrow entire worlds have been built  
Out of longing great wonders have been willed  
They're only little tears, darling, let them spill  
And lay your head upon my shoulder  
Outside my window the world has gone to war.  
~Nick Cave: The Boatman's Call_

Stunned, Lily turned back towards the direction of the unleashed spell and gasped. In the shocked silence that had followed the solitary curse, a line of black-robed masked men had flanked the front wall, blocking the only entrance and exit into the building.  
Lily grabbed James arm, frightened and suddenly very sober. "James," she whispered softly, her fingers trembling against his skin.

In an instant, the room erupted into chaos as a thousand voices clamored to shout spells of attack or retreat. James turned to her with a spark in his eyes that she'd never seen before. As if they'd read each other's minds he pulled his wand from his coat pocket as she reached up to her head, pulling her wand free of her curls and allowing them to cascade down her back like wild flames.

She pressed her back against his, dodging flying jets of nasty curses and trying to locate her enemies through the sea of staggering, fleeing, panicking guests. Several of them had pulled out their wands to defend themselves. Lily's mind floated back to their earlier conversation.

_It still seems unlikely, I mean, there are at least fifty ministry officials and Aurors here with their families, isn't that a bit like tempting fate?_

Maybe that was the trick. These _were_ ministry officials and their families, she realized, their children were here, like the little blonde who'd almost taken the first hit. This was a blatant strategy: the only time when the Aurors would be off their guard and more focused on their own loved ones to worry about the other party attendants.

Knowing what she had to do, Lily suddenly dropped lower to the ground, moving towards the child she'd seen before. The little girl was still right where the first woman had fallen, leaning over her shaking and sobbing as if the room wasn't in chaos all around her. Lily looked up to see James, still aiming spells as often as possible, backing towards her, guarding her. Lily silently thanked him.

"Mummy!" The child screamed. Shaking the dead woman desperately, she made eye contact with Lily. "Why won't she get up?" she sobbed.

Lily felt like she couldn't breathe. "Let's get you out of here," she said in a shaky voice, scooping the girl into her embrace. For a moment the figure fought her and then, suddenly, she surrendered instead and wrapped her arms around Lily's neck, looping her feet around her middle. She was light, Lily thought absently, probably only about seven years old.

"Lily!" James voice pulled her back to earth. "We've got to get out of here."

"How?"

They were still out on the open dance floor, surrounded by tables but far too exposed, even with all of the ministry officials who stood in front of them fighting.  
Looking down at the girl still clinging to her neck she said, "get on my back," and was surprised at how quickly her orders were follow. She crouched low, weaving through bodies of the fallen and the legs of those still fighting. She prayed that James was close behind her.

When she reached the edge of the dance floor she pressed herself against the nearest table. Then she mapped a route towards the back of the room, the table where she'd last seen all of her friends. It was the furthest point from the attackers who seemed confidant enough in their aim to not have moved from their stations by the door yet.

"Do you think we could make it?" James asked, understanding her plan before she posed it.

"I don't see how staying here can help." She replied.

He nodded agreement. "On three, we run...try to keep up a shield but...don't wait on me if I fall behind," James told her. She nodded. "One."

"Two."

"Three!" they said together, half standing and dashing towards the back of the room. In a true miracle, Lily reached it sooner than she thought possible, breathing heavily with her extra load she collapsed behind the table just as it rattled with the brunt of another curse.

"Lily!" A pair of arms crashed around her, making it hard to breath and she heard Dorcas' voice mumbling in a panic.

"How are we getting outta here, Prongs?" That was Sirius.

She pulled away from her friend and eased the little girls' arms from around her neck, pulling her into her lap in an instinctively maternal way.

"Who is this?" Marlene asked gently, eyeing the child with frightened curiosity.

Lily shrugged and the little girl turned and buried her face into Lily's chest. Her friends looked at her full of questions. "I couldn't _leave_ her!"

"How are we getting out?" Frank shouted from somewhere nearby. Lily sought out his voice to find Remus, Alice and Frank huddled behind the table to their right. "It's only a matter of time before they break ranks and come back here, isn't it?"

"There are anti-apparation wards up. It's restaurant policy." James sighed, running a hand through his hair.

"They're blocking the only exit." Remus added dismally.

They needed a safe way out, something that wouldn't be affected by the wards. There were no fireplaces about and she didn't have any floo powder anyway which only left...

"Portkeys," she mumbled to herself already casting her eyes about the area for something sufficient. She carefully reached her hand up to the table above her and grabbed hold of the nearest object, pulling back a fork.

Picturing the only place that was clearly in her mind she put her wand to the fork and muttered, "portus," then slid it across the floor to her friends at the furthest table as Frank, who had been peering over the table towards the door, cried, "They've broken ranks!"

"You've got ten seconds, grab it!"

She watched her friends vanish in a flurry of motion, already trying to find another object. Her hand reached up to the table again, but there was nothing nearby. She choked on her panic but Dorcas thrust an earring into her hand.

"Portus," she said again shakily as a spell collided with the glass window she'd been facing, shattering it and allowing a fierce wind in. "Hold on to me!" she told the little girl as somebody shrieked and she watched her friends grip the jewelry in her hands. Then the world went spinning away.

Her feet hit the ground with a thud, her knees protesting painfully, and she felt everyone land beside her with grunts and groans. She allowed the child in her arms to slide gently down to her little, slippered feet. Taking the girl's hand in her own she steadied her own feet, looked around and breathed a sigh of relief as the entrance to St. Mungo's and the end of her awful night loomed brightly ahead.

She followed gratefully as her friends went inside and checked everyone in. They were directed to a waiting area where many people from the ball and their families had congregated to find their loved ones. The room was deadly silent but for the occasional sobbing of the girl she held or one of the other few children. Couples held tightly to one another or worried their fingers anxiously awaiting news on their other half.

Amidst the chaos, Lily took a seat in the hard plastic chair and felt her whole body complain at the discomfort, but her feet, still strapped into heeled torture devices, sighed in relief. With tiny, silent sobs, the child settled into Lily's lap and buried her face into the redhead's chest. As Lily stroked her hair, a young, dark-haired woman raced into the waiting area in a long, fitted black dress, her hair up in an elegant bun and tracks of running mascara down her olive-colored cheeks.

"John! John!" She scanned the faces in the waiting room desperately, her face crumpling in despair. "John," she shouted again.

A healer in deep green robes frowned from where he was speaking with one of the orderlies and turned towards the woman. "Miss," he said, wrapping his hand around her arm to get her attention, "This is a hospital. I'm going to have to ask you to be quiet."

"John, have you seen him?" The woman asked the Healer, the desperation in her voice a high-pitched wail of despair. "He must be here!"

"Miss, really, control yourself or I'll have you escorted out!" The Healer said, clearly agitated.

Lily was up in an instant, her pained feet and exhaustion forgotten. She was barely aware that she was moving as she passed the little girl to James and approached the Healer angrily. "What's the matter with you," she hissed, "can't you see this woman is in pain!"

Sneering at Lily, the Healer was seething with annoyance at her interference. "Look, this is a hospital, she's upsetting the other patients—"

"She's clearly in a panic," Lily told him, her anger making her voice quiet and dangerous. "Show a little compassion."

"I'm very busy—"

"Yes, Heaven forbid your humanity should interfere with your job. Get back to work, someone with a heart is much more suited to caring for people," she spat acidly.

Glaring at her, the Healer turned and left with muttered curses, but Lily had no ears for him. Instead, she turned to the woman, about five years her senior and gave her a hopeful smile.

"John," the woman whispered, her tone softer but her panic tangible. "He must be here somewhere."

Lily nodded, "Perhaps he's at the Ministry putting in a report or being seen by one of the Healers." Carefully, she led the older girl to an empty seat and rubbed the girl's forearm gently.

"John is an Auror, just finished training," she babbled to Lily. "We're to be married in two weeks." She showed Lily a simple diamond ring on her elegant, slender finger. "We were fighting right before the party and I sent him ahead to punish him. When I got there the doors had been charmed shut," tears tracked down her cheeks and Lily cried with her and for her. "I didn't even tell him I loved him," the woman whispered.

Lily nodded, thinking of her parents. If she had died tonight the spell would've lifted and the last thing they'd remember about her was the moment when she left. "I'm sure John knows that you love him," she whispered reassuringly, "I'm sure he'll be just fine. You'll see." Empty promises really. Lily knew, but the woman seemed to need to hear them as much as Lily needed to give them.

James watched in amazement as Lily spoke gently with the hysterical woman, bringing her peace and calm and reassurance. He could see that she must be exhausted. He felt he barely had the energy to stand. Dorcas had her head resting on Sirius' shoulder and was dozing. Remus and Marlene spoke in hushed tones to each other and Alice was unabashedly settled in Frank's lap.

James looked down at the sleeping child in his arms and thought to himself how naturally it had all come to Lily, how instantly comforting and maternal she was, and fell in love with her a little more.

Slowly, the waiting room began to empty as families were reunited and patients were released to their homes. Remus escorted Marlene home and Alice and Frank left under the ministrations of Frank's mother, Augusta Longbottom.

The elusive "John" arrived nearly an hour after his fiancé' with a bandaged head and a grateful smile as the young woman who'd been sitting with Lily suddenly rocketed out of her seat to embrace him, showering him with kisses and professions of love.

Once the couple left, Lily seemed to look around the room for the first time and, as she caught his eye, he could see the weariness about to take her over. He nodded to the seat beside him and she took it gratefully, leaning her head onto his shoulder in an affectionate and wholly unexpected way.

"Why don't you and Dorc get out of here," he whispered to her gently.  
She shook her head, "We can't leave her here," she muttered sleepily, nodding towards the little girl.

James nodded his understanding. He'd grown rather attached to the tiny blonde in his lap who had trusted him so fully. "Get some sleep, then," James whispered to Lily. She didn't protest. Turning to his other side, James found Dorcas and Sirius asleep as well.

When a tall, dark-skinned man James recognized as Ambrose Rockwell, head of the Auror Department, entered the room, he thought he and his friends would be pulled in for questioning. Then Ambrose turned to him, his brooding eyes suddenly alight and said, "Emily?"

The little girl who'd been out for so long perked up instantly at his voice and, leaping from James' lap, she streaked across the room and barreled into the man's legs.  
Rockwell scooped the child up easily in one arm, holding her tightly against his chest, tears coursing down his face unabashedly. The man strode forward and approached James with an offered hand which James accepted.

"Thank you for saving my little girl," his voice was as gruff as his face and his hands rough with years of field work, but the look in his eyes was earnest.

James shook his head. "It wasn't me," he told the man quietly. He nodded to Lily who, even with all the movement and talking, hadn't stirred fully from sleep. She looked angelic, her pale face glowing in the luminous hospital lights, her breathing gentle and her hair radiant.

"That's quite the girl you've got," Rockwell said. "You're Potter's boy aren't you?" James nodded mutely. It wasn't uncommon to run into someone who knew his father and who recognized him as such. He and his father had looked remarkably alike. "Well, good luck to you and please extended my thanks to Miss..."

"Evans. Lily Evans."

"Miss Evans then." With those words Rockwell nodded his departure and left, Emily waving a frantic goodbye over his shoulder. James waited until he could no longer hear the sound of Rockwell's footsteps before he allowed his own eyes to slide shut in exhaustion.


	12. Chapter 12

**Story:** **Facing Fear**

**Summary: **The war is on the horizon and Lily has had her side chosen for her, but with so much tragedy surrounding her young life and all her ambitions, can she pull through stronger than before or will this war will break apart everything she's ever known?

**Disclaimer:** I don't own it.

**Chapter Twelve: Moments of Hope**

"_Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished _ _by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all."_ _~Dale Carnegie_

Lily grimaced as she finally pried her strappy heels from her ankles, revealing deep, bloody blisters. She bit her lip and finally stepped free of her evening gown, the silky fabric pooling at her feet. Quickly removing her undergarments, she pulled her hair back in a messy knot and with a hiss she stepped into the tub, barely holding in a pained moan as the warm, soapy water ebbed against her blistered feet angrily.

She sat with a sigh, letting the hot water wash away the grime and debris of the attack. Lily sighed sadly and put her head into her hands, trying to relax, to banish the memories of earlier that night.  
_Breathing heavily she stopped, backed into a corner, and faced him. His greasy hair was slicked back, tears slipping down his familiar hooked-nose. She sobbed, "Why?"_

"_I have to."_

"_Please, Sev—"_

"_Avada Kedavra."_

_Lily shrieked as the world slowed down. She saw the curse arc towards her, pointing straight at her heart, but she couldn't move. Her feet were stuck to the ground in shock. The world went dark. _

Lily woke up with a jolt in her tepid bath water. She grimaced as she stood up, her achy body protesting, and wrapped the bathrobe that had been left for her around herself securely. Opening the bathroom door to let out some steam, she pulled her hair loose of its pin and began brushing it diligently.

_Sev wouldn't do it, not to me._

To distract herself, Lily left the bathroom quickly, stepping into the adjoining room she'd been given for the night. After much half-hearted protesting, Dorcas and Lily had conceded to stay at Potter Manor until the Meadowes could be reached overseas to retrieve them. The room James had led her to was the most elegant place Lily thought she'd ever stayed.

Her room was decorated in hues of deep green and brilliant gold, the curtains thick to block out the intruding rays of the soon-to-be-rising sun and the furniture built of the deepest mahogany wood. She felt a little like a princess as she examined the large wardrobe and gilded mirror and she pulled her robe off once more, taking the opportunity in the full length glass to examine her injuries. She found a bruise along her forearm and one that started at the right side of her torso, wrapping all the way around to her back. She fingered it curiously and couldn't help the groan of pain that escaped at the awkward twisting.

The door burst unexpectedly open and she gasped as she turned to face a very red, spluttering James Potter shirtless in a pair of flannel trousers. For a moment Lily stood like a deer in headlights, too shocked to move as heat rose up her body. Then, with a little shriek, she bent quickly to retrieve her robe and hold it over her body hissing, "What are you doing you lookie-loo?"

"Lily, I am _so_ sorry!" He turned quickly away from her but continued to stammer, "I was on my way to my room and I heard you groan and I thought you might be hurt and I just came in. I wasn't even thinking. I swear I wasn't trying to see you...er...naked."

Calmed by James' obvious discomfort, Lily chuckled and little and took the opportunity while he was turned to put her robe on fully. "It's alright, James." she said finally, "I suppose it's nothing you haven't seen before anyway. You can turn around now."

He did, his face still flaming red and grimaced, apologizing again. "Are...are you okay?" She nodded, sighing. "Those were nasty bruises. Are they from tonight?"

She nodded again. "I bruise easily," she explained. Wrapping her arms around herself she said belatedly, "Thanks...you know, for being concerned. I guess I didn't realize how badly they would hurt…"

"Of course. Are you sure you're okay? You looked pretty…"

"Beaten." Lily supplied. It hadn't occurred to her until then that they all might have died tonight.

James nodded. "Well, er, goodnight." He turned to leave and Lily suddenly looked around the big empty room and felt hollowed out. "Wait," without thinking, before she could talk herself out of it, Lily rushed across the room and planted a chaste kiss on his lips. The spark of electricity between them nearly set her on fire. She pulled back to find James staring at her in wide-eyed amazement. "Goodnight," she breathed, placing her hands on his chest, his heavenly bared chest, pushing him into the hallway and closing the door in his face.

Her cheeks surely a stunning shade of red, Lily turned away from the door and let out a most uncharacteristically girlish squeal, pressing her back against the door.

When he knocked she turned and forced herself to open it, her face down sheepishly. James hooked his finger under her chin, forcing her to meet his eyes. "What was that for?"

She shrugged lamely, "It just occurred to me that we could've died tonight and I might never get to do that again."

Without warning, he closed the space between them, pressing his body against hers and claiming her lips in a heated kiss.

Lily thought she would melt into him as he wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her still nearer. This was kissing James Potter, she thought, a never-ending roller coaster of desperation and desire. Everywhere his hands touched left a flame beneath her skin and her hands moved up and down his bared chest of their own accord.

The last time she'd been in this position she'd been wholly focused on herself, she realized with shame, she'd been driven by her worries into his arms. This time, she thought, she wanted it as much as she could feel he did.

James lifted her off the ground easily, carrying her to the bed as best he could while snogging her senseless. She fell onto the soft mattress with a little cry but James was quickly above her, caressing her cheek and separating the folds of her robe to reveal her naked, warm breasts.

"You are so beautiful," he muttered gently, kissing her neck. Lily smiled up at him and allowed him to take over.

When they lay spent in her bed hours later, she ran her fingers through his hair absently listening to the sound of his breathing. "James?"

"Hmm..."

"What are we exactly, I mean...what does this make us?"

James blinked at her owlishly and propped himself up on his elbow, looking down into her face. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, we're not dating, we're past platonic...are we friends with benefits?"

"Lily Evans," James chuckled, "You scarlet woman!"

"I'm being serious," she scolded, half-heartedly slapping his arm.

"Don't be, he's down the hall and one is, quite frankly, more than enough."

"James!"

"Okay, okay," he sighed, looking thoughtfully down into her eyes and brushing a stray hair from her face. "What difference does it make what we call ourselves? This moment, right here, is more than I've even let myself dream about in years. We don't have to qualify what we have with a name. The important thing is that we have it."

Lily grinned up at him, running her hand against his stubble-covered cheek. This James, this thoughtful, mature, understanding James, was still so new to her and yet somehow familiar.

_How long has he been this man and I've been blindly refusing to see it?_

He kissed her passionately and moved to get up. Lily moaned sulkily, but allowed him leave her side, knowing it would be bad for anyone, especially his mother, to catch them in such a compromising position.

"James?" she whispered as he crossed the room and turned the light out for her.

"Yeah?"

"Can we keep this a secret, at least for a little while?"

For a moment he didn't speak and she couldn't see his face through the dark to determine what he was thinking. Then, in a soft voice, he said, "Of course. Goodnight, Lily," and she listened to the door click shut behind him.

CRASH!

At the unmistakable sound of breaking glass, James rounded the corner to the kitchen full of dread, his wand in hand. Lily, he'd learned in the two days she and Dorcas had been staying at Potter Manor, was the only early riser in their midst. She'd woken both mornings and padded through the maze of a house into the kitchen where she'd fixed a full English breakfast, to the delight of his domestically-challenged mother.

Coming into the room he found Lily in the center of the large family kitchen standing in a pile of shattered pieces of what had once been his mother's China. This morning she was wearing a pair of dark-wash jeans (she and Dorcas had retrieved their clothing after a hasty owl from the Meadowes informed the girls that due to the attack, international transportation was being put on hold and they wouldn't be back in the country before school started back) and a long-sleeved black blouse. Her hair was pulled over one shoulder in a long plait and her bare feet where covered in cuts from the broken plates.

"Lily?" he asked carefully, stepping gingerly on the crunching glass at his feet and thankful that he never went around barefoot like she did. She turned to him, her eyes filled with horror, and pointed to the Wireless on the counter which he hadn't even realized was still broadcasting.

"...Margaret, Marcus and Mary McDonald, a family with ministry connections was found dead this morning in their Scotland Hotel room where they were rumored to be visiting relatives. Margaret McDonald was an Unspeakable in the Ministry and Marcus McDonald was a muggle, their daughter, Mary, was a 7th year student at Hogwarts."

"Its Mary," Lily muttered, and James crossed the space between them quickly, grabbing hold of her arms just as her knees gave out on her. "Its Mary," she said again.  
Looking down into her face, supporting her weight almost entirely, he watched as hot tears made trails down her pale, perfect cheeks. There was nothing he could say, so instead he pulled her into his chest, rubbed soothing circles on her back, and wished a better world for her.

He shifted and heard the glass crunching under his feet. With the wave of his wand he returned them to their original state and replaced them on the counter. He only wished it would be as easy to heal Lily's heart.

The McDonald funeral service was held the Saturday after the students returned to class and Dumbledore gave all the Gryffindor 7th years a pass to attend.  
The service had been quiet but for the sobbing of several teenage girls and when everyone had departed, Marlene being supported between Remus and Alice, for the wake, Lily had been unable to turn away.

Instead, she'd found herself on her knees in her long-sleeved black dress, her face in her hands as she sobbed at the memory of sweet, quiet, fragile Mary. Mary who was rubbish at Defense, Mary who couldn't even kill spiders, Mary who had once confided to Lily a deep, hidden crush on Peter Pettigrew. This was a girl she'd known for 5 years, a girl she'd traded shoes and sweets with and celebrated birthdays with.

James' arms were around her in an instant and she leaned back into the comfort he provided. "How can this keep happening?" she asked him softly. "How can it be Mary when it should have been me?"

James turned her around quickly, his eyes wide and blazing. "Never say that, Lily! Never!" He said sharply. It was the hardest he'd been with her since she'd heard the news of Mary.

Looking up into his beautiful hazel eyes she sobbed harder at the hurt written there and shook her head, "I'm the muggle-born. It was supposed to be me," she whispered, trying to make him understand. She'd been prepared to die when the time came, but to watch her friends and family stack up as statistics made her heart clench unbearably.

"I'm sorry about Mary, so sorry," James whispered to her, brushing her hair back from her face fiercely. "But I wouldn't trade your life for a thousand others, do you hear me? Not even my own!"

Lily shook her head obstinately, still sobbing hard enough to hurt. James pulled her against his chest, kissing her cheeks, her forehead, her hair to remind himself that she was still there. Lily gripped his arms tight to anchor her to earth.

James ran his fingers slowly through the luscious red curls fanned out across his chest and listened to the sound of her breathing, savoring the moment he thought he'd never be privileged enough to enjoy. He could feel her lips curl up in a smile, feel the working of the muscles in her arms and her heart beating against his side.

"What are you grinning about?" he asked quietly.

He felt her smile broaden. "I can hear your heart beating," she muttered, absently tapping out the rhythm with her lithe fingers against his skin. "I don't want to go back to the real world yet, I like it here."

With Lily wrapped in the red sheets of his bed and pressed firmly against his bared skin, James had to agree. Her hair was mussed from their recent activity and her curls fell in a soft curtain around him. She smelled like spearmint toothpaste and clean linens and something earthy and flowery and amazing.

Moments like this, ones where James feared that if he pinched himself he'd wake up to find that their whole arrangement had been a dream, stole his breath away. He wrapped his arm tighter around her, encouraging her to stay, and when she sighed he only barely held back his moan of disappointment.

"We should get going," her musical voice whispered; he could hear the regret heavy in her tone.

"Or we could just stay here," he said suggestively, knowing already that her answer would be no.

She giggled, her body bouncing gently against his in the action and driving him dizzy. "James, aren't you exhausted?" She traced a line along his navel and up his chest to rest at his throat.

"Excruciatingly. That's why we shouldn't go."

She laughed again, "And what do you plan to tell Dumbledore you were doing instead of attending his specially called meeting, hmm?"

"Shagging the most gorgeous girl in Hogwarts. Come on, Lily. Have you looked at you lately? Dumbledore would forgive me," he teased.

She slapped his chest playfully before rolling out of his embrace and rising from the bed, dragging the sheets with her and wrapping them snuggly around her body like a toga. "Somehow," she chuckled, leaning down to a pile of laundry at the foot of the bed to divide her clothing from his, "I think that might blow our cover."

"Your logic is ruining my fun!" James laughed. He got out of the bed reluctantly as cool air made him start to shiver. Reaching under the bed he retrieved his boxers and her bra, donning the former and tossing the latter to her. She caught it deftly and turned her back to him to put it on and then slipped her underwear on under the dress she'd created from his sheet.

James watched her diligently as she danced beneath the fabric, trying to shimmy into her skirt. This was one of those things about Lily that he loved in spite of his lack of understanding. She would strip to her skins in moments for him, tearing at her clothes and his like they'd offended her. She'd stand before him with nothing but the heat of her body to protect her and press her smooth skin against his in the height of passion. But when the time came to get dressed, to pull away from the comfortable cocoon they'd created in his bed, she drew away, like pulling a curtain across a sunny window. She'd wrap herself in a sheet or blanket, turn her back, and hide until she was fully clothed. Real-World Lily.

She did so now, as James pulled on his own trousers and began buttoning his shirt. He watched her pull the curtain back up, become the Head Girl and let go of that little piece of freedom he was honored to afford her every time they met in passion.

_I love her._

But he tried not to think such things. Instead he grinned as she turned to face him and shook her head in bemusement. He could see the thoughts in her head like she'd spoken them out loud.

_Honestly, James, how long does it take to throw some clothes on?_

She crossed the room, retrieving his tie off the bed post as she went, and wrapped it around his neck when she reached him. In a quick action, she had the material neatly knotted at his throat.

"How do you know how to do that?" he muttered, sulkily pulling the tie looser.

Lily tsked at his action but didn't fix it. "My father is horrible at tying ties. Mum does it for him. She taught me once, when I was little. She said it was in case I married someone who was as hopeless as Dad..." Her words trailed off and James sensed her tears before they could come.

Wrapping his arms around her shoulders he pulled her into a hug. He could feel her smiling against his throat, a feeling he thought he'd never get enough of, and knew he'd averted the disaster. Pulling back he smiled at her. "Shall we see what this meeting is about then?" he asked.


	13. Chapter 13

**Story: Facing Fear**

**Summary: **The war is on the horizon and Lily has had her side chosen for her, but with so much tragedy surrounding her young life and all her ambitions, can she pull through stronger than before or will this war will break apart everything she's ever known?

**A/N:** Hmm…not sure how I feel about this chapter, but I've put off posting it long enough. I want to give a huge thank you to Clara whose review breathed life back into my writing! The last bit of this chapter is some useless fluff, just for you, Clara, in hopes that you aren't too depressed afterwards. 

**Chapter Thirteen: Taking a Stand**

_Here I stand; I can do no other._  
~_Martin Luther_

Lily gazed fixedly at the empty perch in the corner of Dumbledore's office. The phoenix to which it belonged, like its master, was missing, but she'd never seen his office more full. She, along with the entire 7th year Gryffindors stood along his back wall, trying to appear out of the way without ambling into one of the many intricate trinkets and gadgets which filled the room.

Across the way, sitting straight-backed in some wooden chairs in front of Dumbledore's desk, were three 7th year Ravenclaws. The thin-framed, dark-haired Emmeline Vance had been a close friend of hers before Lily had been named Head Girl. It was common knowledge that Emmeline had desperately wanted the position.

Beside her was Emmeline's prefect partner, the good-looking and very smart Caradoc Dearborn, more fondly referred to around Hogwarts as Doc. Doc, unlike most of the Ravenclaws, had an excellent sense of humor and a lovely and attractive smile. Lily had suffered a crush on him well into her third year.

A third Ravenclaw, a 7th year that Lily knew only by name, sat straight-backed and surly, her hair the most astonishing shade of blonde Lily had ever seen. She was tall and regal-looking with a long, slender neck and firm, arched eyebrows. Gillian Greengrass.

As Lily studied her Ravenclaw counterparts, vaguely listening as well to the gentle whispering between her friends, the door swung open and two Hufflepuffs walked in. Lily greeted them both with a warm smile and wave.

Benjy Fenwick was a squat 7th year Hufflepuff prefect with a mop of yellow hair and pudgy cheeks; his counterpart, Moira MacDougal, was thin but petite with eyes like little black beetles. The two of them greeted everyone jovially and ambled to the third corner of the room, making a triangle of house loyalties.

"So which of you did it?" Sirius teased, eyeing the uptight Ravenclaws with mocking suspicion and winking in Benjy's direction.

"I assume one of you," Doc joked back. "There seem to be an overwhelming number of Gryffindors here tonight."

"Yeah," Peter nodded, smirking, "but we've got Head Boy and Girl in our corner." Emmeline's eyes flared dangerously at the insinuation.

The door opened suddenly, cutting off any further banter, and Dumbledore strode in purposefully, wearing his favorite lavender robes. "Good evening to you all," He nodded his head and stepped behind his desk, leaning against it. "Thank you all for coming. You are all here today because you've approached me, in some way or another, asking how you can help in the coming war."

The room was suddenly filled with whispering voices as each student looked around at his or her friend in shock. Lily turned to James curiously but he only shrugged dismissively.

_I guess I should've expected this from him._

Dumbledore continued speaking like there had been no interruption. "Understand that what I offer is a dangerous course, one which you should not enter into lightly or for a bit of thrill."

"What _is_ it you're offering, sir?" Emmeline asked.

"I am currently assembling a group of, shall we say, witches and wizards of a similar world interest, to aid me in my attempts to put the Wizarding World back to rights."

"Fight Voldemort, you mean?" Doc said bravely.

Lily saw Dumbledore's mouth twitch into a smile. "In so many words," he nodded as some of the other students tittered behind their hands. Lily looked around the room at all the apprehensive faces and thought the same thing that they must be. To join this group, to take Dumbledore's offer, was to sign your own death certificate. Surely they'd be found out and surely they'd be slaughtered. It was only a matter of time. But then, how many might she take out before they got to her? She might take out someone who'd killed Mary or maybe she'd take out the one who killed Emily Rockwell's mother or Nathalie.

_Maybe I'll take someone out before they've ever had the chance to destroy a family._

"I'm in."

The room went silent, several heads spinning around in her direction. Lily looked back boldly, trying not to betray her own shock at her bold statement. She was Head Girl and this was important. If she took a stand, perhaps others would fall in place behind her.

She felt James' hand grip hers covertly behind her back. "Me too," he nodded, bolstering her confidence.

Dumbledore grinned, a true, full smile for once, and nodded. "I thought you two might," he said, "but I meant what I said. This is dangerous work and I won't be accepting any of you until you've graduated this school. Take some time to think this through. I'll be in touch if you have any questions. Good night."

The students nodded and turned to herd out of the office at the dismissal. As soon as they reached the hallway, the students split into groups, turning towards their respective common rooms.

Barely feet away from the gargoyle guarding the office entrance, Dorcas grabbed Lily's arm, halting her progress towards Gryffindor Tower. The others paused too as she hissed, "Are you mad? Joining Dumbledore to take down Voldemort," fiercely, "As if every Death Eater alive doesn't already want you dead?"

Lily scowled at her best friend, jerking her arm away. "Then it shouldn't make a difference, should it? Honestly Dorc, I'm surprised at you, I know for a fact you'll join."

"Yes well, I'm not a—"

"A muggle-born."

"Oh, don't put words into my mouth, Lily!" Furious, Dorcas glared at her, her arms crossed over her chest, defiant as ever. Their friends looked between the two of them worriedly, Sirius running an agitated hand through his hair and James taking a step forward trying to determine if it would be wise to interfere.

Lily shook her head, "If you can fight for my life, I don't see why I shouldn't!"

"Because it's dangerous!"

"My life _is_ dangerous, Dorc," Lily shouted. "So is yours! So was Mary's!" Her voice cracked on the last word brokenly and she felt like she couldn't breathe. Tears sprang to her eyes as she continued, her voice shaky but fierce, "They took Mary at night, unprepared, unarmed...she, she didn't even get to fight! If I'm gonna go, I want to have taken down as many of them as possible. I want them to _remember_ the day they crossed wands with this muggle-born!"

"Nobody else is going to die." It was the first words Marlene had spoken since the McDonald funeral and they were deadly quiet and stern. Everyone, even the feuding Dorcas and Lily, turned towards her lithe, pale face. "Nobody else is going to die, not alone. We have to stick together, not tear each other apart."

"Marlene is right," Alice nodded, quietly stepping up beside her friends. "Soon there will be plenty of people who will be willing to take us down. You two shouldn't be fighting."

Lily sighed, nodding her understanding. She turned back to face Dorcas, who suddenly looked on the edge of tears. She wrapped her arms around her stomach protectively and whispered, "I just don't want you getting hurt. We've already lost Mary, I just don't think I could stand to..."

Lily sighed, understanding that irrational fear all too well. She stepped towards Dorcas and pulled her into a warm hug. "I'm not going anywhere," she whispered.

Alice and Marlene stepped up and joined the embrace. It was the closest the four of them had been since before the Ministry Ball and the loss of their 5th counterpart. Lily silently prayed that Marlene was right and that they would all be okay.

Lily could still remember days when Potions had been her favorite class, when she and her best friend would huddle over a cauldron, top in their class, and revel in their common interests, whispering conspiratorially to each other like they were the only people in the room. It was those moments, those glimpses of Severus, which had made her hold on so long after she knew she'd lost him.

Now, Lily and her friends skirted out of the dungeon classroom hurriedly, their bags hitched over their shoulders, hoping to escape Slughorn's invitations to a Slug Club party. They'd rounded the corner, ahead of their peers, when a horrible ripping sound, followed by something heavy landing on her foot, caused Lily to stop in her escape route with a little yelp of pain.

"Damn," she muttered, watching ink seep into her shoes and leaning down to retrieve the contents of her ripped bag hurriedly.

"Oh, Lily," Alice cooed sympathetically as Dorcas knelt to help her.

"No," Lily sighed, smiling at her friends. "Its fine, really, I've got it."

"Are you sure?" Marlene asked.

She nodded, motioning for her friends to go ahead, "It's alright, I've got this," she said, indicating her Head Girl badge, "You three ought to hurry up though. Just tell Flitwick I'll be late, yeah?"

Lily listened to the retreating footsteps of her friends as she shuffled through her books, cleaning the ink off the pages magically, stacking and folding her parchment and trying to salvage one of her last bottles of ink from the threads of her shoes. The traffic leaving from the Potions lab stepped over her quietly, the Slytherins pretending she wasn't there and only a few Gryffindors offering assistance which she politely declined.  
When Lily finally finished collecting her things she looked around the now empty hallway, examined and repaired her bag, and then turned and headed back towards the dungeon classroom, glancing around suspiciously.

Too late to react, Lily felt a hand clasp around her mouth and drag her backwards through a hanging wall tapestry into a hidden alcove of the castle. She was pressed against the wall, her neck ravished and she grinned against his lips as he trailed kisses there.

"James," she breathed excitedly, "You owe me a bottle of ink."

"I'll buy you seven if you skive off class," he mumbled, his hands running along the hem of her shirt and creeping along her warm skin.

"You know I won't," she laughed, "Charms is my best subject, besides, I'm Head Girl!"

"You better start taking off your own points then, Lil, 'cause I'm sure this isn't allowed." His hands were wondering lower, slipping between the fabric of her skirt and thigh. Her breath hitched and he grinned.

"Says the Head Boy and partner in crime." she whispered, every inch of her trembling with desire. "I believe you're in that class too, James. Wouldn't it be suspicious if neither of us showed up?"

"Fine, you tease," he joked, pressing one last kiss against her lips. He stood up, straightening his uniform and stepped out from behind the tapestry murmuring, "see you in class."

Lily waited a moment, catching her breath and straightening her skirt, before listening at the tapestry for any students.

She reached the Charms classroom, thanks to a shortcut James has showed her once during rounds, just as Flitwick called her name in the roll.

"I'm here, sorry professor, my bag broke and made a horrible mess." She lied smoothly as she slid into her seat next to Dorcas smiling apologetically up at the tiny professor. He nodded, accepting the excuse willingly, and continued through class roll.

"Is everything okay?" Dorcas whispered once Flitwick's eyes began moving around the classroom again.

Lily shrugged, "Why wouldn't it be?" She pushed down the bubble of guilt in her stomach and schooled her face neutral.

Dorcas shrugged too, "It just took you longer than I expected. Besides, that's the third time your bag has broken since we've been back. Maybe we should get you a new one."

"Maybe," Lily nodded, making a mental note to remind James of this conversation. He'd have to come up with a new way of getting her alone.


	14. Chapter 14

**Story:** **Facing Fear**

**Summary: **The war is on the horizon and Lily has had her side chosen for her, but with so much tragedy surrounding her young life and all her ambitions, can she pull through stronger than before or will this war will break apart everything she's ever known?

**Chapter Fourteen: A Series of Secrets**

_Secrets are made to be found out with time._

_~ Walter Chrysler_

James looked into his full length mirror testily, trying in vain to make his hair lay flat.

"Just give up, dear," The mirror sighed.

"Geez, thanks," he replied, ignoring its advice.

He had a date with Lily tonight, their first in this bass-akwards relationship of theirs. It had taken him weeks, but he'd finally convinced her that if they were already sleeping together, saying yes to a date with him really shouldn't hurt her pride any.

It was remarkable to James that the red-head, who'd been so reluctant to accept the offer, had become so excited about their secret date in the past few days. She'd been the one to pick the room of requirement for the date since his friends knew the password to their tower. She'd also been the one to determine a "dress code" for the occasion, insisting she spent far too much time in her school uniform as it was.

She was the reason he was standing in his room in his best khaki slacks and a black button-up shirt six days before his birthday trying in vain to look impressive, because, deep down, even as he'd teased her for her fluster, James had waited seven years for this moment and he wasn't about to blow it.

"James!"

He jumped, his eyes searching wildly around the room at the sound of Sirius' voice. He peered suspiciously into the corner of the room where he knew Sirius would hide if he'd managed to steal the invisibility cloak.

"Yoohoo, Jamesy?"

This time James was able to trace the sound in the direction of his bed and he swore colorfully as he recognized the source. Picking up the mirror he hissed at his best friend, "What?"

"Geez, you're grumpy," Sirius muttered, his face coming into focus in the surface of the small two-way hand mirror they'd bewitched nearly three years ago for communication.

"Sorry," James sighed, trying not to sound annoyed. He'd have to leave in ten minutes to meet Lily and he still wasn't satisfied with his appearance. Of course, there was no way Sirius could know any of that. "What's up?"

Sirius gave him an incredulous look. "You're joking right? We've been waiting on you for thirty minutes, we've got to go like...now."

"Sirius, don't be cryptic. What are you talking about?"

"James! It's March 24!" James knew very well what day it was. It was his and Lily's first date. It would go down in history next to hell freezing over, pigs flying and their first kiss. What he didn't know was why that mattered to Sirius. "It's a full moon, you wanker! How could you forget that!"

_How, indeed?_

*~LE~*

Lily looked down at her watch testily, her pacing steps never faltering as she worked on wearing a hole into the floor of the room of requirement. Today, under the request of "I need somewhere nice and private for my date with James," the room was cozy with red hangings along all the walls and mahogany wood floors. A small, round table stood to one side of the room, it's top and chairs covered in rich gold fabric and set for two expectantly. The other side of the room was bare — a floor for dancing, Lily suspected — with nothing but a wireless attached to the wall which was currently crooning some sappy love song at her.

An hour ago, when she'd entered the room, Lily had been delighted by her surroundings, admiring the fabric, testing the food (which appeared, she learned, when you focused on how hungry you were) and humming to the music. Now, however, James was very, very late and Lily was remarkably annoyed.

Fidgeting with the long-sleeved green dress she'd donned for the occasion, she sighed grumpily, checked her watch once more and then with an angry shriek stormed out of the room.

The wind was strong and chilly, blowing her hair into her face so that it stuck to the tears trailing down her cheeks. She wrapped her arms tighter around herself, wishing she'd thought to grab a cloak as she'd stormed from the castle somewhere between distraught and furious. Shivering, she pulled her sleeves down around her hands so that only her fingernails were susceptible to the penetrating wind, but gooseflesh covered her bare legs and she knew that even in her pathetic melancholy, it wouldn't be wise to stay out much longer.

Swiping angrily at her tears she rose from her spot on the ground, cursing herself for agreeing to this date, this arrangement and the feelings swarming in her core when she thought about him. This was supposed to be convenient and easy. It wasn't supposed to hurt.

She stood up from where she'd been squatting by her favorite tree at the edge of lake. When she'd been younger, she and Severus had spent hours there studying, telling each other funny stories or just enjoying one another's company. When his new group of disapproving friends had come between them and he didn't like to see her in public anymore, Lily had started coming by herself or with Dorcas. It was the lake, she thought, that drew her so desperately to this place. It was the way the whole world reflected in its surface like Alice's rabbit hole. It was the idea that if she jumped through, maybe the world would be completely different on the other side.

"I could use a little 'different' right now," she muttered to herself, tearing her gaze away from the lake's glassy surface. A high-pitched howling shattered the silence and stillness of the castle grounds at night.

She frowned, turning to locate the source. It was a strange sounding howl, unlike any dog she'd ever heard and full of a sort of melancholy she thought she understood in her current emotional state. But there were no wild dogs in Hogwarts or Hogsmede and there weren't any wolves living in the Dark Forest. In fact the only creatures she could think of that might howl so strangely were...her head jerked quickly back to the surface of the lake where she'd been admiring the reflection of the full moon.

_Oh, shit!_

She turned back towards the castle in time to hear the low, rumbling growl of a stalking creature and she held her breath as her eyes adjusted to the gloom, meeting a pair of glowing ones that came attached to dripping, sharp fangs.

Lily held her breath as the great, grey beast held its ground, its eyes roving up and down her shivering body hungrily. Trying to move as little as possible, Lily quietly and slowly eased her foot back behind her, hoping to make contact with the tree she'd been sitting at and climb it. Her heart sunk as her foot cracked a twig or leaf and the wolf, fueled by her movement, reared back. With nothing left to do, Lily sent out a silent prayer, threw her hands up over her face and braced herself for the impact.

A sickening thud alerted her that the wolf had made contact but, moments later, she realized she'd not moved from where she stood. She pulled her arms away quickly to the most magnificent sight: a large stag was wrestling the werewolf, herding it away from her with its antlers, backing the beast towards the edge of the lake. Lily gasped as something tugged on her sleeve and she looked down to see a huge, shaggy black dog pulling her in the direction of the castle.

"Sn-Snuffles?" she stammered, recognizing the beast from her visit with Mopsy.

_What the hell is he doing so far from Hogsmede?_

But there would be time for analysis later. Right then, all Lily knew was that she'd been saved from the brink of death. Heeding the dogs whimpers, she nodded and allowed him to lead her to the castle gates as quickly as her feet could take her.

Relief flooded through her as she reached the front doors, pushing them open and racing inside. The dog, surprisingly, followed her in. Lily breathed in shaky relief as she turned to shut the doors behind them and barely resisted the urge to shriek when she turned around to face Sirius Black.

She looked around wildly, wondering where he'd come from, and where Snuffles had gone and why Sirius didn't seem surprised to find Lily out so late. And then it clicked.

"You're an animagus," she whispered in disbelief. Sirius grimaced but nodded in the affirmative. "I…How? When? Why?" she breathed, unsure of which question she needed answered first.

"Later, Lils," he told her, his voice tight. "Right now we've got to get back outside and help James."

Lily's brow creased as she turned towards the closed oak doors. "James? But…" _Prongs._ She gasped, "The stag?"

Sirius nodded again and, quite unexpectedly, reached into his shirt pocket producing a grey garden rat. He set it on the ground and moments later Peter Pettigrew stood there, blinking owlishly at her.

"You're _all_ animagus?"

"Not all of us…" Peter murmured.

And Lily understood. She threw her hands over her mouth in a gasp, "It was Remus," she whispered, sadness for her friends making her stomach twist.

The boys nodded. "We've gotta go, Lily." Sirius said.

She nodded without an argument. "When you get back," she told them, opening the door to let them out, "Come straight to my room. I've got some questions."

*~JP~*

James would reflect, for years afterwards, that it had been a bad idea to leave Lily alone for so long with only her active mind for company, working herself into a frenzy of anger and annoyance.

The thought first entered his mind when, stepping through the portrait hole to his common room behind his friends, he found a pair of small hands on his chest, pushing him roughly back into the nearest wall.

"You idiots," she shouted, before the three boys had even had a chance to greet her. James looked at the red head, still in the green dress from before, her hair falling in waves down her back, her feet bare and her face a tense mask of worry, and he knew she'd not slept a wink all night.

"Lily, calm down," he said gently as Sirius and Peter took seats on the sofa and he tried to ease his way there as well.

"Calm down," she shrieked, halting his progress. "Do you have any idea what could've happened? You _all_ could've been killed! And do you have any idea what would've happened to Remus if you were? I'll tell you what would happen; he would've faced in inquiry with the Ministry. It could ruin his life!"

"Lily, we've done this loads of times," James told her, his exhaustion making him overly annoyed and not in the mood to be shouted at. "It's perfectly safe!"

"Safe," she scoffed, "James, I was almost killed tonight!"

His anger broke. He knew the danger she had been in. He could still feel where his heart had threatened to beat out of his chest when he thought he wouldn't reach her in time. "Well what the fuck were you doing out on the night of a full moon, anyway?" He shouted.

Her eyes blazed and James knew he'd gone too far. When Lily spoke she was practically hysterical. "What was I doing? I'll tell you what I was doing James _Potter_, I was out there feeling lonely and dejected because _you_ stood me up! _You_ stood me up on a date that _you_ insisted we go on because, what the hell, we're already sleeping together right?" Her voice cracked on her last words and he saw tears well up in her eyes.

Feeling awful, he softened instantly and took a step towards her, placing his hands on her shoulders and meeting her bloodshot eyes. "I'm sorry, Lils, honest. I'd forgotten about the moon when I picked the date."

"Oh, you _forgot_?"

"Yes, Lily, I forgot. Merlin, the last thing I ever wanted was to stand you up! I've been trying to get that date for five years!"

"Then why didn't you meet me?" Her voice was a hoarse whisper of desperation as a single tear slipped down her cheek. In that moment James knew suddenly that, no matter what masks she wore for the world, for him, she was in this deeper than she'd ever care to admit. Some part of her, however small, was feeling for him what he had always felt for her.

Gently, he cupped her face in his hands, pressing his forehead against hers. "Please don't cry, Lily. I never wanted to hurt you. It's just…it's easier for him when we're there, he…he doesn't hurt himself as much."  
"And what if one day he gets hold of one of you, hmmm?"

"Werewolves don't have an instinct to attack animals. We can keep him in line, make sure he doesn't hurt anyone."

"Like tonight?" she asked, fingering a scratch on his shoulder curiously.

"Yes, like tonight. We would never let him hurt anyone, Lils. That's why we're there."

She nodded and her voice was much softer when she said, "I can't even hate you for this, can I? You were just trying to help a friend." She sounded so put out that he couldn't help but chuckle a little. She looked up and gave him a watery smile in return.

"I'll be damned," Sirius' voice broke into their moment. "Moony was right about them." James felt Lily tense under his hands, her eyes meeting his in wide horror as she turned around to face his two friends whom they'd both forgotten were in the room.

"Moony is _always_ right," Peter added with a smirk, "You kids have some explaining to do."

"Yeah, what's all this about dates and shagging?" Sirius' smirk was overwhelming. Lily moaned softly and James gripped her hand.

~~LE~~

"So, you two have been dating for three months?" Remus chuckled when Lily entered his curtain-covered hospital area the afternoon following the full moon with a small bag tucked under her arm. He looked awful, she noted, with a long, jagged scar down his right arm covered in a thick blue salve and deep purple circles under his eyes.

"Not dating," she sighed, very aware that Sirius and Peter, who'd been sworn to secrecy in the wee hours of the morning after an exhausting conversation, had told Remus already. She opened the bag and handed him a wrapped sandwich from lunch.

"Shagging then?" He amended curiously, accepting the offered food with a smirk.

She shook her head sheepishly, her face going red as her roots as she took a seat near his bed. "It's not just that either," she sighed, dropping her face into her hands. "I don't know what we are anymore…I…I don't even know where he begins and I end." She looked up to meet Remus' eyes but couldn't read anything in them. "Well, say something!"

Remus chuckled then. "I can't believe he finally won you over." He took a large bite from his sandwich.

"You're not being very helpful!"

"I wasn't aware that's what I was supposed to be doing," Remus laughed. It was good to see him laugh, especially after the night he must've had, but Lily was in no mood to be picked at. She scowled at him and he immediately brought himself under some semblance of control. "Sorry, it's just," he hesitated, "Not what I expected of you."

"I'm a tart, aren't I?" she sighed embarrassedly. "Christ, what kind of Head Girl goes around secretly shagging in broom closets?"

"Broom closets? Really?" She threw a roll from the bag at him which he caught deftly and began wolfing down.

"Do you think less of me?"

"Don't be stupid, Lily, of course not."

"But it is unexpected? I mean, I'm not the sort of girl who…"

"Has a secret relationship with her arch nemesis," he offered. "No. But then...maybe that's the point. You two, I think you're rather perfect for each other."

"We're not dating Remus." She reminded him.

"You would be if it hadn't been for me." He was suddenly solemn and not meeting her eyes.

"Don't be ridiculous."  
"Lily, aren't you upset? I could've…Gods, I could've killed you last night," his eyes were dark and haunted by the thought.

Lily shook her head, "I'm not afraid of you, Remus. Don't be afraid of yourself. You're a wonderful person. I know you wouldn't hurt me."

"How can you know that?" He asked sadly.

Lily grabbed his hand above the covers and squeezed it reassuringly, waiting for him to meet her gaze. "Because I know you. You are not the wolf, Remus. And you're a good friend."

Remus smiled up at her gratefully, his eyes only a little less haunted than before. "Lily," he sighed, "_You're_ a good friend."

"And only a little bit of a tart," she laughed.

"Well, Sirius could tell you all the virtues of tarty girls."

"Brilliant. Now I'm the sort of woman _Sirius_ would like? Are there any Marauders who _aren't_ interested in getting into my knickers?"

Remus paused thoughtfully and then gave her a wicked grin. "Peter, maybe, but we're pretty sure he's a poof."


	15. Chapter 15

**Story:** **Facing Fear**

**Summary: **The war is on the horizon and Lily has had her side chosen for her, but with so much tragedy surrounding her young life and all her ambitions, can she pull through stronger than before or will this war will break apart everything she's ever known?

**Chapter Fifteen: The Hour of Separation**

_Ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation._

_~ Kahlil Gibran_

"In closing, I just want to remind all of you to look out for the students under your care. It is our responsibility to keep them in mind and keep them safe as long as they are within these walls. You never know who will be affected by the violence outside of them," Lily said solemnly, being sure to catch the eyes of each of the fifth and sixth year prefects she stood before.

After the McDonald murders, Voldemort and his death eaters had seemed to grow bolder in leaps and bounds. In the past months since the students had returned to school, there had been 13 different attacks (or disasters, according to the muggle newscasters) in small European muggle towns. The students were in a barely controlled panic as, each day it seemed, a horrid black envelope from the Ministry brought news of a death in the family.

James and Lily had tried their best to stem the flow of chaos that threatened the student body and detentions were at an all-time high with students pitting against each other in the hallways to vent their frustrations. Lily had urged each of her prefects to get to know the students in their houses on a personal basis so that they would be aware of any changes in that student, especially the muggleborns, but so far the request had been ignored.

"Yeah, yeah. We've heard this already," a cold voice spoke from the back of the room. Lily's head shot up at the challenge in the students' voice. Regulus Black, Sirius' younger and nastier brother sneered at her. "You talk about equality, but here you are, urging us to get cozy with the mudbloods—"

"I hear that word again, Black, and I'll see to it personally that not only are you stripped of all your house points, but your badge as well," Lily hissed, clenching her fists to keep from throttling the little whelp. "That goes for all of you," she added rather unnecessarily, glancing about the room. "You are _prefects_, the best students in this school according to Dumbledore and your head's of house. I will not tolerate words of ignorance in these ranks, is that understood?"

Several sheepish 'yes's filled the room, but she kept a steely gaze on Regulus until the fifth year finally gave in, nodding curtly. She waited a beat more, trying to regain her composure, before she dismissed the group. They slunk out quickly, not keen to anger her again, and Remus and Dorcas told her they'd see her at the quidditch pitch where James was holding a practice before the upcoming game against Ravenclaw (they'd agreed he could miss one prefect meeting on account of quidditch).

Lily stacked the papers in front of her twice, breathing deeply to calm herself, when she heard a small voice from just outside the room. Turning, she was surprised to find that it was Emmeline Vance.

"Em," Lily said shocked. "What can I help you with?"

Her dark-haired peer met her eyes sheepishly. "I...I wanted to ask you something actually..."

"Go on," Lily urged, happy to be on speaking terms again. She stepped out of the meeting room and pulled the door behind her, meeting Emmeline's eager but cautious face with what she hoped was a winning smile.

"Well, see...Merlin, this is embarrassing...I've noticed you and James have gotten pretty friendly and...I was sort of wondering...if you'd, you know, put in a good word for me?"

"A…a good word?" Lily said stupidly. At the mention of James her heart had begun to race. _Had Emmeline figured them out?_ But when the Ravenclaw had stated her request, Lily thought her heart might have stopped beating all together.

Emmeline nodded. "Yeah, you know, talk me up? Encourage him to, I dunno, ask me to the graduation ball?"

"James? James _Potter_?"

"Geez, Lily. Do you know any other James'? See the thing is...I've sort of had this long-standing crush on him...but, since he was all hung up on you, I sort of figured I didn't have a chance." Timidly, Emmeline cast her glance around the empty hallway they stood in, seeming to search for inspiration or nerve. "Now that the two of you are friends and he's stopped making advances, I thought maybe he'd be willing to give the rest of us a shot." She shrugged.

Lily felt like her voice had deserted her. Her gut clenched like she'd been punched. It was a mark of how long she'd been keeping secrets from her friends that she was able to keep her face complacent and neutral. "I'm sorry, Em," she said finally, "I would love to help you, but, I think you're overestimating my sway on James. Me putting in a good word for you would probably do more harm than good." She shrugged and turned to retreat desperately, feeling a little faint.

Emmeline sighed and nodded her understanding, walking beside Lily in silence for a moment. "Perhaps I'll just go ask him...you know, make the first move," the dark-haired girl said softly. "Potter doesn't seem the sort to be put off by that, does he?"

"I suppose not," Lily agreed noncommittally, her mind silently racing with thoughts.

"Well, thanks anyway, Lily," Emmeline said finally. She came to a halt. "You know, I'm sorry about the way I've been…behaving lately." Lily stopped in her brisk retreat and Emmeline smiled at her apologetically. "I was jealous, I admit it, but Dumbledore really did pick the best girl for this job."

"Thanks, Em," Lily said, her voice a little raspier than she'd intended. If Emmeline noticed, she didn't comment and the girls left in opposite directions with very different thoughts about the same boy.

*~LE~*

Lily didn't go down to the pitch that night despite her promise to James that she would. She wasn't sure she could face him in front of a crowd of people without melting down. Emmeline's request had left her more shaken that she'd ever willingly admit, but why?

_Do I have feelings for him?_

_As more than a friend?_

_As more than sex?_

She didn't know, but her whole body trembled at the realization that she might be falling for him. What was it she'd said to Remus?

_I don't even know where he begins and I end._

"Merlin, Lily, how could you have been so stupid?" She muttered to herself. "How could you have put yourself in this position?"

She'd originally planned on hiding in the Room of Requirement, thinking she'd be safe there, but remembering the last time she'd been in the room waiting on James, she'd made a quick change in routes. Settling for the library, she slunk into the crowded room where students were studying for their end-of-year exams. Making a beeline for the history section where she knew nobody would be, she found a spot on the floor and, flanked by towering book shelves, she dropped her head to her knees dejectedly.

Perhaps she was just overreacting.

_What's the likelihood that Em will actually ask him out?_

_Even if she does, why would he say yes?_

It occurred to Lily then how stupid it had been not to discuss this possibility with James sooner. After all, James was a good-looking, kind, mature Gryffidor god. _Of course_ other girls in this school would be barking up that tree. She'd never considered that someone might ask him out or that he might have to come up with a good reason for turning them down.

_But what if he doesn't?_

The thought struck her no less painfully than an anvil. They'd never deemed themselves mutually exclusive. They'd never discussed what they were to each other. _She_ had told him that she wanted this to be a secret affair. Lily felt sick to her stomach when she reached up to her face and found tears there.

*~LE~*

Lily had waited in the library until closing when Madame Pince had unceremoniously kicked her out. Feeling wholly unable to deal with whatever might come next, she rounded to corner leading to the Head's commons apprehensively.

She was just in time to see the portrait door swing open and (_Oh, God_) Emmeline Vance coming out with a huge smile on her face. Lily was too far away to hear what it was the dark-haired Ravenclaw whispered into James ear, but whatever it was, he turned a brilliant shade of red and nodded. The girl stood onto her tiptoes, kissing him gently, before she sashayed in the other direction.

For a moment, Lily pressed herself into the wall, feeling too weak to move. A million emotions coursed through her, draining her, confusing her. She was hurt, shocked, but most of all, she was furious. Furious with herself, with James, _definitely_ with Emmeline.

The fury alone, like liquid fire in her veins, gave her the needed strength to push herself off the wall and storm into the common room.

James was seated on the sofa, apparently staring into space (_or daydreaming about the kiss he'd just shared with Emmeline_), but as she swung the portrait closed angrily—the ballerina in the frame complained loudly in the hall —he turned to her with a bewildered look on his face.

"Lily?"

"You kissed her!" It probably wasn't her best opening line.

"Wha—"

"Emmeline! I saw you! You kissed her! Did you say yes?"

"'Yes' to what?" If he knew what was going on, he was a great actor, but Lily was beyond caring.

"When she asked you to the ball?"

A light seemed to click on at those words and now James stood up with fury in his own hazel eyes, the couch between them becoming a necessary barrier as the room seemed to literally shake in anticipation of their row. "You knew she was going to ask me?" His voice was dangerously calm. "What did you do, send her to me as a test?"

"Don't be stupid!" Every word felt like acid flying from her tongue. "She asked me what I thought! She wanted me to talk her up to you!"

"And you didn't mention we'd been shagging for four months?"

"I couldn't, could I? This," here she motioned between them, miming some sort of invisible tether between them, "is a secret!"

"Because _you_ wanted it to be!" It was the first time he'd raised his voice and the boom made her ears ring. He looked like a madman with his unruly hair, wide, wild eyes and clenched fists.

Weakend by his angry gaze, Lily lowered her voice, feeling defeated. "I just need to know what you said, James. Did you say yes?"

The look in his eyes might have turned her to ice quicker than any wand as he strode around the sofa, standing only inches in front of her. "If you have to ask me that, Lily, I'm not sure why I'm even here." Then he brushed past her, their shoulders barely touching, "We're done." And the portrait clicked shut with a resounding finality.


	16. Chapter 16

**Story:** **Facing Fear**

**Summary: **The war is on the horizon and Lily has had her side chosen for her, but with so much tragedy surrounding her young life and all her ambitions, can she pull through stronger than before or will this war will break apart everything she's ever known?

**Chapter Sixteen: The Realization**

_A kiss is a lovely trick designed by nature to stop speech when words become superfluous._ _  
-Ingrid Bergman_

The last week in April at Hogwarts was always a blur of activities as exams began, the sun came out and the last quidditch matches drew the entire school outside.  
If things had been normal, Lily would've spent the last few weeks of her time at Hogwarts out by the lake with her friends, studying for her NEWTs, trying to collect seven years worth of loose items from her room and saying long goodbyes to the people she might not see again.

Instead, Lily had spent the last three days in her bed in the Head's tower, buried under her pile of blankets refusing to eat, speak or really do anything but cry a lot.

Dorcas had temporarily moved into the room with her, a duffel bag lay forgotten in the corner stocked with chocolates that Lily wouldn't eat and a six-pack of butterbeers (Dorcas privately thought Firewhiskey might be more useful but didn't know how to get a hold of any) that Lily wouldn't drink.

It hadn't taken the dark-haired Gryffindor long to figure out what was going on when Friday night James had stormed into the Gryffindor common room and stomped up the steps to his dormitory without a glance around at anyone. Moments later, Sirius had come down the steps with a gloomy look and informed Dorcas that she might want to go check on Lily in the Head's tower.

"They've had a row," was all he'd said, but Dorcas knew it had been more than that.

When Dorcas reached the Head's tower, it was to find Lily lying in the floor of the head's bathroom looking every bit like a wilting flower. Lily had barely put up a fight when Dorcas asked what was going on and, within minutes, had spilled all the gory details of her and James' secret affair. She'd sobbed pathetically for hours, telling Dorcas about their "casual" relationship, and how it "didn't mean much," but she'd cried so long that Dorcas knew that wasn't true either.

"Lily," she'd said finally, stroking the red hair that was flowing across her lap as Lily buried her face into Dorcas' legs, "You don't have to lie to me. I know you're hurting, it's okay. I'm here."

Lily shook her head. "Don't be nice to me, Dorc. I don't d-d-deserve it. I've been lying to ev-everyone. I'm s-so stupid," she stammered between sobs.

That was Friday.

Saturday and Sunday, Lily refused to leave her bed for anything but quick trips to the bathroom and had only been able to coke down some pumpkin juice on Dorcas' insistence that "if you die of dehydration, I'll kill you."

Monday, Lily skipped class claiming she was ill.

Tuesday, Dorcas had had enough and had woken Lily by unceremoniously flipping the mattress with the red-head still on it. She had given in then and attended classes. As a reward, Dorcas had agreed to eat lunch and dinner in the kitchens with her.

By Wednesday, McGonagall had pulled Lily aside and reminded her in no uncertain terms that she was Head Girl and insisted that Lily pull herself out of the funk she was in.

When Thursday finally rolled around, Lily was almost back to normal, as far as anyone could see. She was smiling again, if a little tightly, she ate lunch in the Great Hall, though she was still noticeably skipping breakfast and dinner. She took her notes, threw herself into her class assignments. From the outside looking in, Lily was every bit of what she'd always been her first six years at Hogwarts: a hard-working, friendly student.

There was really only one obvious change: she and James wouldn't come within ten feet of each other. If he ate at one end of the table, she ate at the other, if he sat at the back of class, she sat at the front. They canceled two weekly prefect meetings and on the third one Lily skipped it for a "tutoring" session. It was as if the past year, their friendship, everything, had never even happened.

Every professor at Hogwarts sighed in disappointment.

*~LE~*

The last quidditch match of the season promised to be spectacular: Gryffindor versus Slytherin, always a good game, and both teams were within 100 points of taking the cup.

Lily stood in Dumbledore's office, able even from this height, to hear the clamoring of students heading out to the pitch. Dumbledore was dressed in periwinkle robes, his eyes gleaming behind his glasses.

"I've considered you're offer carefully, professor," Lily told him without preamble, tearing her eyes away from the fresh spring grass below, the herd of students and the rising joviality in the air. "And mine still stands. I want to join you. I want to fight."

Dumbledore nodded his head in a regal sort of way and chuckled. "I didn't think you would be backing out, Ms. Evans," He confided, lowering his voice in a conspiratory sort of way. "I have to say, I'd hoped to see both you and Mr. Potter join. Quite the allies you'd both be."

"Oh," Lily bit her lip, but couldn't keep herself from asking, "is James joining then?" She'd aimed for casual, but sensed she'd come up short.

"That is not my secret to tell," Dumbledore laughed, "but I daresay he'll tell you himself. I always thought if I could just get the two of you to work together for a moment, you'd see how perfectly matched you both are in temperaments."

Lily felt her eyes grow wide of their own accord.

_Surely he's not implying he played match-maker._

Dumbledore only smiled genially at her. "Now, if you'll excuse me dear, I rather have a soft spot for quidditch and, don't spread it around, but I've always had a fondness for lions." He swept out of his chair grinning at her and leading her out the door, and down the spiral staircase. Lily absentmindedly followed Dumbledore all the way down to the front doors before she realized where she was headed.

"Oh, er," She hesitated. "I've just remembered that I've got some last-minute studying to do, professor. Do enjoy the match, sir." She ran back inside before he could protest and found herself sitting at the base of the staircases gloomily.

She couldn't figure out how everything had gone so wrong. Just a few weeks ago she'd been the happiest she'd ever felt. Now she was alone in the castle, the entire school outside cheering for or against a man she couldn't even speak to anymore.

Had Dumbledore been right? Were they meant for each other? Did they fit? They had certainly seemed to, if only for a minute. But then, what about now? What about the mess they were in?

If Dumbledore was all-knowing, all-seeing, shouldn't he have known that Lily and James had had a falling out?

Or maybe he did. Maybe this was one of those reverse-psychology things. Maybe Dumbledore was telling Lily that she and James were being idiots. Maybe they were. But then she hadn't called it off, had she? It had been him.

But she'd wanted to keep it a secret. Not because she was ashamed of him but, because he was hers. When nobody knew, she could pretend that there was no outside world, nothing but him when they were together.

She was talking herself into circles, she realized, and not getting anywhere, when distraction arrived in the sound of a student entering the castle. Lily looked up shocked. Surely the entire student body was out on the pitch enjoying the match. What student would give that up?

But the answer came too suddenly when Emmeline, her long, dark hair pulled into a smooth ponytail, turned and spotted Lily. Both girls paused for a moment, like children caught in a compromising position. Then Emmeline shrugged and moved over to Lily, taking a seat next to her on the steps.

"I've been meaning to talk to you," she sighed.

Lily shook her head. "No, there's no need." She tried to sound friendly but couldn't meet Emmeline's eyes as she said, "I...I saw you and James kissing. I guess you asked him out. He must've said yes."

"What?" Emmeline sounded truly confused and Lily couldn't help but turn to meet her gaze. "James and I never kissed."

Now she was just insulting Lily's intelligence. The red-head scowled. "Outside the Head's tower Friday night?"

"Friday? I...oh...oh!" The dawning comprehension in Emmeline's eyes, Lily thought, ought to have looked a lot more like guilt. Instead the dark-haired girl gave a mirthless, hollow sort of laugh. "Lily, you've got it all wrong."

"What?" It was Lily's turn to be confused.

Emmeline sighed, shrugging her shoulders. "I _did_ ask James out Friday." Lily nodded. "But he turned me down."

"He," Lily hardly dared to breathe. "He said no?"

Emmeline nodded and grimaced. "He said he couldn't go with me to the ball, because he had his heart set on someone else...on _you_, Lily."

"But," this didn't make any sense, "but you two were in the tower for hours."

"Yeah," the dark-haired girl nodded, "talking about _you_. About all the things he likes about you. Geez, Lil, that boy is crazy for you!"

Lily thought her heart might stop beating. She held her breath as she whispered, "But...the kiss?"

"A chaste peck on the lips. A good luck send-off." Emmeline met Lily's eyes and laughed, a genuine, hearty laugh. "You have to be the dumbest smart person I know! It's you! For him, it's always been you! Lily, he loves you!"

"He...he loves...." She couldn't even finish the sentence.

_He loves me?_

She thought she'd die of happiness. He hadn't agreed to take Emmeline to the ball. He loved her. He would wait for, had waited for her.

_I'm an idiot!_

"I...Em...I have to go," She said suddenly, the clouds of the past week, pulling away from her eyes, making the world bright again.

Emmeline nodded her understanding. "Consider this my good deed for the year. If you hurry, you might catch him on the pitch before the match ends."

Lily barely heard the end of her friend's sentence as she set off across the entrance, tore through the castle doors and streaked across the pitch to the grass. Her red-hair flying behind her like a banner and her feet so light she felt she was barely touching the ground, Lily reached the pitch as a shout went up from the stands. The match was over and the players were on the ground, the winning team being congratulated.

And there, in the center of the pitch, surrounded by his friends, teammates and fans, being patted on the back, well-wished, shouted at, was James Potter.

His unruly hair was windswept and wonderful, his chiseled chest just visible through the form-fitting jersey he wore. He had his broom in his left hand, hanging down by his side and was turned slightly towards Sirius who was shouting a flurry of excited babble.

Lily pushed her way distractedly through the crowd towards him, until she was only a few feet away. "James," she whispered too quietly for anyone to hear, but as if she had shouted it he turned his head suddenly to face her.

There were a million things she wanted to say in that moment: That she was wrong, that she was sorry, that they were perfect and that she was an idiot. Every word seemed to be blocking the others from coming out and for a long moment she just stared at him.

Then, as if it had been her plan all along, she flung herself through the space between them, wrapping her arms around his neck and pressing her lips against his. The whole world went quiet, or maybe it was just that way in her head, and for a painful second, James stood still and rigid.

When she was about to give up and pull away, a thud near her feet told her he'd dropped his broom and in another second his arms were wrapped around her middle, pulling her closer to him, deepening their kiss.

"I love you," she whispered against his lips.

The crowd around them, barring a select few Gryffindors in the know, looked on it utter amazement as Lily Evans and James Potter, Head Girl and Boy, sworn Gryffindor enemies, kissed at centerfield at the end of the last match of their Hogwarts career. The couple never even noticed the shouting.


	17. Chapter 17

**Story:** **Facing Fear**

**Summary: **The war is on the horizon and Lily has had her side chosen for her, but with so much tragedy surrounding her young life and all her ambitions, can she pull through stronger than before or will this war will break apart everything she's ever known?

**Chapter Seventeen: Epilogue**

_You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do._ _  
-Eleanor Roosevelt_

On a lonely hill in Scotland, she stood like a painted silhouette. Her auburn hair flowed out behind her like a flame caught in the wind. The hem of her purple sundress swayed like an ebbing, flowing tide. She clutched her denim jacket tighter to her shoulders to ward of the wind as she stood at the base of three marble headstones and placed a single white Lily at the head of the center marker.

James stood a few feet back, allowing her a moment to pay her respects and shamelessly taking the time to admire her beauty when she was completely unaware.

Finally, Lily turned to face him. There were tears running down her cheeks silently, but she smiled at him a little, nodding to indicate that she was alright.

He reached a hand out to her which she took gratefully. The glint of the sun off her diamond ring made him smile in the knowledge that soon she would be his.

"Are you ready for this?" He asked gently. Oh, the many meanings behind such a simple phrase.

She didn't say, instead asking, "Are _you_ ready?"

"Lily," James teased, kissing her temple as they retreated down the hill slowly, "No man is ever ready to meet his future in-laws."

Lily laughed musically at that. "Well, I've got a lot of owning up to do too," she sighed, worrying her lip at the prospect of lifting the memory charm from her parents and admitting to them what she'd done. "They'll probably barely have energy for you once they're done with me."

James squeezed her hand gently, reminding her that he was there. "Are you scared?"

Surprisingly, Lily didn't hesitate in responding. "A little," she said, grinning at him, "but when I'm with you, I can face my fears. I know you'll be right behind me."

"Beside you," He corrected softly. She nodded her agreement and together they turned with a quiet pop, leaving the Scottish countryside empty and peaceful, a single lily the only indication that they'd ever been there.


End file.
